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Harris,  Samuel,  1814-1899. 

The  self-revelation  of  God 


W 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2019  with  funding  from 
Princeton  Theological  Seminary  Library 


https://archive.org/details/selfrevelationof00harr_1 


THE 


SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD 


BY 


SAMUEL  HARRIS,  D.  D.,  LL.  D. 

PROFESSOR  OF  SYSTEMATIC  THEOLOGY 
IN  YALE  UNIVERSITY 


THIRD  EDITION 


NEW  YORK 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER’S  SONS 
1893 


Copyright,  1886, 

Bi  CHARLES  SCRIBNER’S  SONS 


The  Riverside  Press,  Cambridge,  Mass.,  U.  S.  A. 
Electrotyped  and  Printed  by  H.  0.  Houghton  &  Company. 


THE  STUDENTS 


WHO  IN  SUCCESSIVE  CLASSES  HAVE  BEEN 
UNDER  MY  INSTRUCTION  IN 

PHILOSOPHY  AND  THEOLOGY  IN  BOWDOIN  COLLEGE 

AND  IN 

BANGOR  AND  YALE  THEOLOGICAL  SCHOOLS, 

(Cfei's  'SBooft 

IS  RESPECTFULLY  DEDICATED 


CONTENTS. 


Design  and  plan 


INTRODUCTION. 


PAGE 

1-11 


PART  I. 

GOD  REVEALED  IN  EXPERIENCE  OR  CONSCIOUSNESS  AS  THE  OBJECT  OF 

RELIGIOUS  FAITH  AND  SERVICE . 13-149 

CHAPTER  I. 

RELIGION. 

Definition.  1.  Christianity  and  the  ethnic  religions.  2.  Religion  the 
response  of  man's  spirit  to  the  presence  of  the  true  God.  3.  The  idea 
of  God  at  first  obscure  and  defective.  4.  Two  essential  elements  of 
the  idea  of  a  divinity.  5.  Progressive  development  of  the  idea.  6.  No 
religion  without  a  divinity.  Proposed  substitutes.  7.  Religion  man¬ 
ifested  in  all  man’s  spiritual  powers.  8.  Ethnic  religions  degenerated  15-29 

CHAPTER  II. 

GOD  KNOWN  IN  EXPERIENCE  OR  CONSCIOUSNESS. 

I.  Explanations.  Definition  of  experience.  In  what  sense  consciousness 


is  used  .  .  . . 30-36 

II.  The  elements  of  the  idea  of  God  given  in  intuition  and  so  brought  within 

the  consciousness.  Objections  answered . 36-38 


HI.  Consciousness  of  God  in  its  deeper  meaning.  1.  Reasonable  and  ante¬ 
cedently  probable.  2.  Implied  in  the  idea  of  religion  and  essential  to 
its  reality.  3.  In  fact  assumed  in  all  religions.  4.  Involved  in  man’s 
moral  consciousness.  5.  And  in  his  scientific  consciousness.  The  idea 
and  belief  presupposed  in  the  proofs  of  God’s  existence . 38-47 

CHAPTER  III. 

GOD  KNOWN  BY  REVELATION. 

What  revelation  is.  Essential  to  man’s  knowledge  of  any  being.  Revelation 
of  man’s  ph}rsical  environment.  Revelation  of  man  in  his  personality. 
Revelation  of  God.  What  God  reveals  is  himself . 48-58 


VI 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

GOD  KNOWN  THROUGH  REVELATION  BY  THE  ACTION  OF 
MAN’S  MIND  RECEIVING  AND  UNDERSTANDING  IT. 

1.  Necessary  to  the  impartation  of  knowledge  by  any  revelation.  Three 
factors  in  the  knowledge  of  God.  2.  Action  of  thought  defining 
the  idea,  verifying  the  belief,  purifying  and  enlarging  the  knowledge 
of  God.  Mistakes.  Objection.  3.  Knowledge  of  God  through  reve¬ 
lation  progressive.  4.  Inferences  as  to  the  Biblical  revelation.  5. 

The  consciousness  of  God  in  the  background  of  self-consciousness. 
Pantheistic  error . 59-73 

CHAPTER  V. 

MAN’S  CAPACITY  TO  RECEIVE  GOD’S  REVELATION  AND  TO 

KNOW  HIM  THROUGH  IT. 

1.  The  capacity  assumed  in  all  religions.  2.  Implied  in  the  reality  of  human 
knowledge  and  the  true  conception  of  man’s  powers  of  knowing. 

Rational  realism,  the  true  theory  of  knowledge.  God  not  known  by 
unaided  reason.  The  reason  sense.  3.  Possible  on  account  of  man’s 
likeness  to  God.  True  line  of  demarkation  between  the  supernatural 
and  the  natural.  4.  Knowledge  of  God  rooted  in  every  part  of  man’s 
constitution  as  personal.  5.  Not  a  special  faith-faculty,  6.  Objec¬ 
tion  that  the  absolute  cannot  present  itself  in  the  consciousness  of  a 
finite  being.  7.  Belief  and  knowledge.  8.  Theology  concrete,  not 
abstract  . . . . 74-102 


CHAPTER  VI. 

MAN’S  SPIRITUAL  CAPACITIES  NEED  TO  BE  AWAKENED. 

1.  Either  because  not  yet  developed,  or  because  neglected  or  perverted. 

2.  The  capacity  to  know  God  exists  in  the  deepest  spiritual  insen¬ 
sibility.  3.  God  gives  the  influence  of  his  Spirit  to  awaken  men 
from  spiritual  insensibility.  4.  Growth  of  knowledge  after  the 
awakening.  Acquisition,  assimilation,  organization  of  knowledge 
into  life.  5.  The  Christian  doctrine  of  the  witness  of  the  Spirit  .  103-120 

CHAPTER  VII. 

SYNTHESIS  OF  THE  EXPERIENTIAL,  HISTORICAL  AND  RATIONAL 

IN  THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD. 

Necessity  of  the  synthesis  seen  in  the  errors  resulting  from  isolation.  1. 

Isolation  of  the  experiential  issues  in  mysticism.  Quietism ;  fanati¬ 
cism.  2.  Isolation  of  the  rational  issues  in  dogmatism  and  ration¬ 
alism.  Exemplified  in  the  history  of  Protestantism.  3.  Isolation 
of  historical  revelation  issues  in  mere  archaeology  and  criticism. 

Or,  in  an  opposite  direction,  the  Bible  isolated  from  thought.  4. 

Necessity  of  the  synthesis  of  the  three.  5.  Historical  revelation  the 
medium  of  it.  Christ  the  centre  of  religious  life  and  theological 
thought.  6.  To  attain  this  synthesis  the  problem  of  all  theological 
thinking.  Objections  to  theology.  7.  Historical  fact  that  religious 


CONTENTS. 


Vll 


experience  and  theological  thought  have  been  the  working  out  of 
this  synthesis.  Three  stages  in  the  progress  of  theological  thought. 

8.  Key  to  the  current  movement  of  theological  thought  ....  121-149 


PART  II. 

GOD  REVEALED  IN  THE  UNIVERSE  AS  THE  ABSOLUTE  BEING  ....  151-229 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

THE  ABSOLUTE  BEING. 

Unity  of  the  so-called  arguments.  Defects  in  their  common  treatment. 

Definition  of  absolute  Being.  That  it  exists  a  necessary  principle 
of  reason.  Objections  answered.  Denial  of  the  absolute  Being  in¬ 
volves  universal  skepticism.  Its  existence  an  implicit  postulate  of 
physical  science.  Historical  persistence  of  the  idea  and  belief.  Con¬ 
currence  of  agnostics,  pantheists,  materialists  and  deists.  The  true 
significance  of  the  a  priori  or  ontological  argument.  The  absolute 
Being  revealed  in  the  universe . 153-165 

CHAPTER  IX. 

THE  ABSOLUTE  BEING  AND  NON-THEISTIC  THEORIES. 

Definition  of  atheism.  Classification  of  non-theistie  theories . 166-170 

I.  Denial  of  all  knowledge  of  the  existence  of  absolute  Being.  Repre¬ 
sented  by  Comte’s  positivism.  Rejects  attempts  to  construct  a 
theory  of  the  universe  as  unnecessary  and  illegitimate.  Implies  the 
impossibility  of  knowledge.  Rejected  by  physical  science.  Rational 
necessity  of  finding  a  theory  of  the  universe . 170-171 

II.  Spencerian  agnosticism.  Is  partial,  not  complete  agnosticism.  Arises 
from  attempting  to  define  what  the  absolute  Being  is  from  the 
a  priori  idea;  this  gives  only  negatives ;  the  absolute  Being  known 
as  revealed  in  the  universe.  Assumes  a  false  a  priori  idea.  Rests 
on  a  false  application  of  the  maxim  that  definition  limits.  Issues 
logically  in  complete  agnosticism.  Agnostics  inconsistent  with 
themselves.  Cosmic  theism.  Mr.  Spencer  might  more  consistently 
be  a  theist.  The  theistic  position . 172-182 

III.  Pantheism.  1.  Definition.  2.  Rests  on  no  reasonable  grounds.  3. 

Involves  contradictions.  4.  Inadequate  to  solve  the  necessary  prob¬ 
lems  of  reason.  5.  Incompatible  with  free  will,  moral  responsibility 
and  religion.  6.  Various  forms,  its  essential  principles  the  same  in 


all.  7.  Calls  attention  to  neglected  aspects  of  truth .  182-201 

IV.  Materialism.  Definition.  Not  monism.  Does  not  give  the  real  abso¬ 
lute  Being.  Rests  on  subjective  materialism.  Cannot  account  for 
the  facts  of  personality.  Nor  for  physical  phenomena.  Its  contra¬ 
dictions  .  201-206 


Vlll 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  X. 

THE  ABSOLUTE  BEING  AND  THEISM. 

Four  forms  of  belief  in  a  divinity.  Two  objections.  The  question  stated. 

Alleged  impossibility  of  identifying  the  absolute  Being  of  philosophy 
with  the  personal  God  whom  we  worship.  1.  The  alleged  impos¬ 
sibility  arises  from  the  falsity  of  the  philosophy.  2.  From  false 
ideas  of  theism.  3.  F»rom  false  ideas  of  personality.  4.  Knowledge 
of  the  absolute  Being  positive  but  incomplete.  5.  The  absolute 
Being  is  the  All-conditioning.  6.  Atheism  not  in  agreement  with 
itself ;  in  each  form  has  some  agreement  with  theism.  7.  Truths 
misconceived  in  pantheism  and  set  forth  in  theism .  207-229 

PART  III. 

GOD  REVEALED  IN  THE  UNIVERSE  AS  PERSONAL  SPIRIT  THROUGH  THE 
CONSTITUTION  AND  COURSE  OF  NATURE  AND  THE  CONSTITUTION 
AND  HISTORY  OF  MAN .  231-440 


CHAPTER  XI. 

GOD  REVEALED  IN  THE  UNIVERSE  AS  THE  POWER  FROM  WHICH 
IT  ORIGINATES  AND  ON  WHICH  IT  DEPENDS. 

The  cosmological  argument.  The  absolute  Being  is  the  First  Cause,  tran¬ 
scending  the  universe.  Shown  from  the  essential  finiteness  and 
conditionedness  of  the  universe.  Objections.  Intimations  of  the 
personality  of  the  absolute .  233-250 

CHAPTER  XII. 

GOD  REVEALED  AS  PERSONAL  SPIRIT  IN  THE  CONSTITUTION 

AND  COURSE  OF  NATURE. 

The  Physico-theological  argument.  Nature  and  scope  of  the  evidence. 

Preliminary  objections.  Principle  on  which  the  argument  rests  .  .  251-256 

I.  Nature  is  symbolic.  Physical  objects  known  in  intellectual  equiv¬ 
alents.  Their  objective  ideality.  Theism  the  only  explanation. 

Nature  comprehended  in  science.  No  science  if  nature  did  not  re¬ 
veal  universal  reason  like  man’s.  Physical  science  in  harmony  with 
theism.  Symbolism  of  nature  recognized  in  human  language  and 


action.  All  physical  objects  in  the  unity  of  a  system .  256-266 

II.  Nature  orderly  under  law .  267-272 


III.  Nature  realizes  ideals.  Internal  and  external  ends.  1.  Evidence  in 
particular  objects  and  arrangements.  In  structures.  In  processes. 

In  selection.  In  the  cooperation  of  many  agencies.  2.  Evidence 
in  the  progressive  realization  of  a  plan  in  the  cosmos  as  a  whole. 

Teleology  of  evolution.  3.  Evidence  in  the  beautiful  and  sublime 
in  nature .  272-281 


CONTENTS. 


IX 

IV.  Nature  subserves  uses.  1.  Subservience  of  particular  agents  and 


processes  to  the  uses  of  sentient  and  rational  beings.  2.  Nature  as 
a  whole  subservient  to  the  spiritual  system .  281-287 

V.  Unity  of  nature  and  the  supernatural  in  one  all-comprehending 

system .  287-292 

VI.  The  Inference . 292-294 

VII.  Objections  against  the  evidence.  Arising  from  isolating  a  single 
fact.  Alleging  imperfection  in  the  object  adduced  as  evidence. 

From  the  existence  of  physical  evil .  294-316 


VIII.  Objections  against  the  validity  of  the  inference.  That  order  and 
law  prove  the  absence  of  will.  That  the  inference  from  final  causes 
is  not  scientific.  That  it  presupposes  a  knowledge  of  the  divine 
purposes.  That  the  evidence  is  annulled  by  discovering  the  effi¬ 
cient  cause.  That  we  have  had  no  experience  in  world-building. 
Fortuitous  concurrence  of  atoms.  Supposition  that  the  universe  is 
grounded  in  reason  or  spirit,  but  unconscious  and  impersonal  .  .  316-346 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

GOD  REVEALED  AS  PERSONAL  SPIRIT  IN  THE  CONSTITUTION 

AND  HISTORY  OF  MAN. 

I.  In  the  existence  of  personal  beings .  341-345 

II.  In  the  constitutional  religiousness  of  man.  1.  Religion  with  belief 
in  a  divinity  generic,  spontaneous,  powerful,  persistent.  2.  There¬ 
fore  constitutional  in  man.  Objections.  3.  Inference  that  God 
exists .  345-365 

III.  In  the  constitution  of  man  as  shown  by  its  analysis.  1.  In  man’s 

intellectual  constitution.  2.  In  man’s  moral  constitution  as  having 
free  will.  3.  In  his  susceptibility  to  rational  or  spiritual  motives 
and  emotions.  4.  Belief  in  God  rooted  in  every  part  of  man’s  con¬ 
stitution  as  personal.  5.  Religion  and  belief  in  a  divinity  antecedent 

to  and  independent  of  science . 

* 

IV.  God  revealed  in  the  practical  power  of  faith  in  him.  1.  Necessary 

to  religion.  2.  Practical  influence  in  every  sphere.  3.  Objection 
that  these  blessings  may  be  realized  without  a  God.  Hellenistic 
culture . 

V.  God  revealed  in  the  course  of  human  history.  1.  In  the  history 
of  man’s  religions.  2.  Atheism  disastrous.  3.  Influence  of  reli- 
gion  in  the  progress  of  civilization.  4.  The  only  true  philosophy  of 
history .  423- +33 

VI.  Anthropomorphism.  The  objection  stated  and  answered .  433-440 


365-402' 


402-423 


X 


CONTENTS. 


PART  IV. 

GOD  REVEALED  IN  CHRIST  AS  THE  REDEEMER  OF  MAN  FROM  SIN  .  .  441-552 

CHAPTER  XIV. 

ESSENTIAL  CHARACTERISTICS  OF  GOD’S  REVELATION  OF  HIM¬ 
SELF  IN  REDEMPTION  THROUGH  CHRIST. 

I.  It  is  historical.  II.  Involves  the  miraculous.  III.  The  redemptive 
action  constitutes  the  revelation.  IV.  The  Christian  revelation  is 
historical  and  prophetic.  V.  Through  a  human  medium  in  its  re¬ 
ception  and  communication  and  is  progressive.  VI.  The  Bible. 

VII.  The  redemptive  action  continued  in  the  Holy  Spirit.  VIII. 
Christianity  ideal  as  well  as  historical .  443-473 

CHAPTER  XV. 

MIRACLES. 

I.  Definition.  II.  Possibility.  III.  Epochal  in  the  spiritual  system  and 
in  the  physical.  IV.  Miracles  and  law.  V.  What  the  impossibility 
of  miracles  implies . . .  474-504 

CHAPTER  XVI. 

UNITY  AND  CONTINUITY  OF  THE  REVELATION  OF  GOD  IN 

NATURE,  MAN  AND  CHRIST. 

I.  In  nature  and  man .  505-515 

II.  In  nature,  man  and  Christ.  1.  Christ’s  coming  an  epoch  in  the  reve¬ 
lation,  central  in  human  history.  2.  Brings  the  divine  into  the 
human  as  an  abiding  power  of  illumination,  renovation  and  recon¬ 
ciliation.  3.  Takes  up  and  vitalizes  all  truth  in  the  religion  of 
Israel ;  in  the  ethnic  religions ;  in  modern  substitutes  for  a  divinity  ; 
in  philosophy.  4.  Reveals  the  worth  of  man  and  the  significance  of 
human  life.  5.  Christianity  the  absolute  and  universal  religion  .  .  515-532 

III.  Unity  of  law  in  the  spiritual  and  the  physical  systems .  532-546 

IV.  Objections.  1.  Christianity  cannot  take  up  the  varied  knowledge  and 

activities  of  the  present  time.  2.  Christianity  unreasonable  in  view 

of  the  vastness  of  the  universe  . .  546-552 


“  The  one  true  and  deepest  theme  of  the  world' s  and  man's  history ,  to  which  all  others 
are  subordinate ,  is  the  conflict  of  faith  and  unbelief.  All  epochs  in  which  faith ,  under 
whatever  form ,  prevails ,  are  brilliant ,  heo  rt-elevating ,  and  fruitful  for  contemporaries 
and  for  after  times.  On  the  contrary  all  epochs  in  which  unbelief  under  whatever  forms , 
maintains  its  sorry  triumph ,  even  though  for  a  moment  they  should  shine  with  a  sham 
splendor ,  vanish  from  the  view  of  posterity ,  because  no  one  chooses  to  trouble  himself  to 
know  that  which  is  unfruitful 

GrOi-fHE  -  Israel  in  the  Wilderness,  in  Notes  to  the  West-Ostlicher  Divan, 


THE 


SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD, 


INTRODUCTION. 

It  may  seem  needless  to  add  another  to  the  many  treatises  on 
what  we  have  been  accustomed  to  call  Natural  Theology  and  the 
Evidences  of  Christianity.  Certainly  there  is  no  need  of  a  mere 
repetition  of  the  familiar  arguments.  But  God  in  Christ  recon¬ 
ciling  the  world  unto  himself  presents  himself  anew  to  the  peo¬ 
ple  of  ever}^  generation  to  be  received  or  rejected  as  their  re¬ 
deemer  from  sin,  and  his  kingdom  of  righteousness  and  good-will 
to  be  sought  or  refused  as  the  progressive  and  only  realization  of 
the  true  wellbeing  of  man.  And  while  the  reasons  for  believing 
in  God  and  seeking  first  his  kingdom  are  always  in  essence  the 
same,  the  apprehension  of  them  by  men  of  successive  generations 
must  vary  in  accordance  with  the  progress  of  knowledge  and  civ¬ 
ilization  and  the  changing  condition,  opinions  and  development 
of  man.  Hence  in  every  generation  the  claims  of  God  in  Christ 
to  the  faith  and  service  of  men  must  be  examined  anew.  The 
old  truths,  more  precious  than  rubies,  will  never  change,  but 
they  must  have  a  new  setting  in  the  knowledge  and  life  of  the 
time. 

In  our  day  scientific  discoveries  and  industrial  inventions  have 
enlarged  our  knowledge  of  the  universe  and  of  the  application  of 
its  material  and  forces  to  the  service  of  man.  And  since  the  uni¬ 
verse  itself  is  the  manifestation  or  revelation  of  the  ever  present 
God,  this  enlargement  of  knowledge  presents  new  evidence  of 
his  existence  and  new  revelations  of  what  he  is.  Also  the 
progress  of  knowledge  as  to  the  physical,  political  and  social 
wellbeing  of  man  presents  new  tests  and  confirmations  of  the 
reality  of  God’s  revelation  of  himself  in  human  affairs  and  pre¬ 
eminently  in  Christ,  and  of  the  necessity  of  his  redemption  of 
men  from  sin  and  of  the  progressive  realization  of  his  kingdom 

l 


2 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


of  righteousness  and  good-will  on  earth  to  the  renovation  and 
the  true  progress  and  wellbeing  of  man.  Philosophical  thought, 
also,  is  finding  a  broader  and  firmer  basis  for  theistic  belief. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  intense  energy  and  wide  range  of  hu¬ 
man  thought,  its  great  discoveries,  the  great  increase  of  knowl¬ 
edge  and  its  wide  diffusion,  bring  us  to  new  points  of  view,  open 
new  ranges  of  investigation,  and  so  necessarily  raise  new  ques¬ 
tions,  difficulties  and  objections  as  to  the  existence  of  God  and 
the  reality  of  his  revelation  of  himself  in  the  universe  and  espe¬ 
cially  in  Christ.  These  are  forced  on  us  from  the  spheres  of 
physical  science,  of  social  and  political  economy,  and  of  philoso¬ 
phy.  For  example,  while  the  Kantian  philosophy  in  one  line  of 
its  development  has  been  helpful  to  theism,  in  another  line  it 
has  issued  in  a  diversified  progeny  of  phenomenalism,  agnosti¬ 
cism  and  pantheism. 

Thus  the  thinking  of  the  present  day  on  God  and  his  revela¬ 
tion  of  himself  to  man,  on  the  part  both  of  skeptics  and  believers, 
has  an  earnestness,  vigor  and  depth,  a  breadth  of  range  and  a 
general  prevalence  never  before  surpassed.  Butler’s  Analogy, 
Paley’s  Natural  Theology  and  Evidences  of  Christianity,  the 
Bridgewater  Treatises,  and  similar  defenses  of  Christian  Theism 
in  the  last  and  the  earlier  parts  of  the  present  century  are  not 
now  sufficient.  The  evidence  which  they  present  is  as  valid  as 
ever  ;  but  they  fail  to  present  the  new  evidence  and  to  meet  the 
new  questions  and  objections  now  urged  on  our  attention  ;  their 
method  is  open  to  criticism  ;  and  some  of  the  principles  which 
they  assume  are  now  the  very  points  in  question. 

Hence  there  is  imperative  need  of  a  reexamination  and  restate¬ 
ment  of  the  evidence  of  the  reality  of  God’s  revelation  of  himself 
as  the  one  personal  God,  and  of  his  preeminent  revelation  of  him¬ 
self  in  Christ  as  the  Redeemer  of  men,  reconciling  the  world 
unto  himself  as  recorded  in  the  Bible. 

Such  reexamination  is  also  necessary  in  order  to  discriminate 
between  false  and  true  ways  of  meeting  the  difficulties  and  ob¬ 
jections  of  the  time,  and  to  prevent  fleeing,  as  if  in  desperation, 
to  defenses  of  Christianity  which  only  betray  it.  For  example, 
some  theologians  are  looking  to  a  modified  Hegelianism  with  an 
inevitable  trend  toward  pantheistic  thought,  to  stay  the  progress 
of  skepticism.  But  in  thus  defending  Christianity  they  are  in 
danger  of  sacrificing  not  only  Christianity,  but  with  it  the  per¬ 
sonality  of  man  and  the  personality  of  God. 

In  Part  I.  I  consider  the  origin  of  the  knowledge  of  God.  It 


INTRODUCTION. 


3 


begins  as  a  spontaneous  belief  in  the  religious  experience  or  con¬ 
sciousness. 

Any  statement  of  the  evidence  of  Christian  theism  which  is  to 
meet  the  thinking  of  this  age  must  take  and  hold  the  position 
that  man’s  knowledge  of  God  begins  in  experience.  It  exists  in 
his  implicit  consciousness  as  a  spontaneous  feeling  and  belief  be-, 
fore  he  has  defined  it  in  thought  or  asked  for  evidence  of  its  truth. 
All  knowledge  originates  in  experience.  Thought  discovers  no 
new  element  of  reality.  It  can  only  apprehend,  define  and  in¬ 
tegrate  the  realities  already  presented,  from  within  or  without, 
in  intuition.  Until  the  presentation  of  some  reality  in  expert 
ence  thought  is  impossible,  because  there  is  nothing  to  think 
about.  We  know,  indeed,  in  rational  intuition  the  self-evident 
principles  of  reason  which  are  regulative  of  all  thought  and  ac¬ 
tion.  But  the  mind  acts  in  these  rational  intuitions  presenting 
these  principles  in  consciousness  only  on  some  occasion  in  experi¬ 
ence  which  calls  forth  thought.  “  Pure  thought,”  developing 
knowledge  a  priori  without  the  presentation  of  any  reality  in 
experience,  is  impossible.  In  this  there  is  now  a  general  concur¬ 
rence  of  all  schools  of  thought.  At  the  present  day  any  satis¬ 
factory  statement  of  the  evidence  of  Christian  theism  must  con¬ 
form  to  this  principle.  Man  cannot  find  God  by  mere  dint  of 
thinking  without  knowing  him  in  experience,  any  more  than  he 
can  find  the  outward  world  in  that  way.  “  Pure  thought  ”  can¬ 
not  attain  even  the  idea  of  God  in  this  way,  any  more  than  a 
man  who  has  never  seen  can  acquire  the  idea  of  color.  By  thus 
thinking  he  will  find  nothing  but  his  own  thoughts. 

The  next  position  to  be  taken  is  that  man’s  knowledge  of  God 
in  experience  presupposes  God’s  revelation  of  himself  to  man. 
All  objects  known  in  experience  reveal  themselves  by  some  ac¬ 
tion  on  the  man  in  which  they  present  themselves  in  his  con¬ 
sciousness.  Man  has  knowledge  even  of  himself  only  when  he  is 
in  some  way  active  and  therein  reveals  himself  to  himself  in  his 
own  consciousness.  In  like  manner  man’s  knowledge  of  God  in 
experience  presupposes  God’s  revelation  of  himself  to  man.  By 
some  action  or  influence,  mediate  or  immediate,  on  the  man,  God 
has  presented  himself  in  his  consciousness  and  thus  revealed  him¬ 
self  to  him.  The  initiative  in  man’s  knowledge  of  God  must  be 
taken  by  God.  Man  can  never  come  to  the  knowledge  of  God 
and  to  communion  with  him  unless  God  has  already  made  ad¬ 
vances  to  the  man.  Man  can  know  God  only  in  some  revelation 
which  God  makes  of  himself  to  man.  The  great  truth  of  Chris- 


4 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


tianity  is  that  it  is  not  man  who  must  first  seek  God,  but  it  is 
God  who  first  seeks  man.  And  this  accords  with  a  philosophical 
truth  underlying  the  possibility  of  man’s  knowledge  of  God. 

Next,  as  to  what  God  reveals,  the  position  to  be  taken  is  that 
God  primarily  reveals  himself  rather  than  doctrines  concerning 
himself.  The  doctrines  are  the  product  of  man’s  intellectual  ap¬ 
prehension  of  God  in  the  true  significance  of  his  revelation  of 
himself.  But  what  man  is  to  know  is  God  himself.  So  the 
heavenly  bodies  do  not  reveal  astronomy,  they  reveal  themselves 
and  their  movements.  It  is  man’s  study  of  them  as  thus  revealed 
which  produces  the  astronomy.  What  man  knows  in  the  astron¬ 
omy  is  the  heavenly  bodies  themselves  and  the  laws  of  their  ac¬ 
tion.  The  current  of  modern  thought  is  setting  powerfully  away 
from  the  abstract  to  the  concrete,  from  words  and  abstract  no¬ 
tions  to  facts  and  things,  from  the  formulas  of  thought  to  the 
realities  which  they  signify.  Our  thought  of  God  must  set  in 
the  same  direction.  The  question  is  not,  Do  we  know  truth,  doc¬ 
trines,  moral  precepts  ?  but,  Do  we  know  God  and  what  do  we 
know  of  him  ?  It  is  not,  Can  we  prove  the  truth  of  Christian¬ 
ity  as  a  system  of  thought  ?  but,  Do  we  know  God  in  Christ  re¬ 
deeming  the  world  from  sin  and  establishing  his  kingdom  of 
righteousness  and  good-will  to  be  sought  first  as  the  realization 
of  man’s  true  wellbeing  ? 

As  to  the  method  of  revelation,  the  right  defense  of  Christian 
theism  must  show,  further,  that  God  reveals  himself  primarily  in 
historical  action  by  what  he  does.  By  his  action  and  influence 
on  the  individual  he  reveals  himself  in  the  consciousness.  He 
acts  in  the  courses  of  nature  and  of  human  history  in  providen¬ 
tial  action,  in  moral  government,  in  redemption,  in  the  advance¬ 
ment  of  his  kingdom  of  righteousness  and  good-will,  and  thus  re¬ 
veals  himself  to  men.  God’s  revelation  of  himself  recorded  in 
the  Bible  is  mainly  through  historical  action.  His  prophetic  rev¬ 
elations  of  truth  and  precept,  of  warning,  promise  and  predic¬ 
tion,  are  occasioned  by  events  occurring  or  impending,  and  are 
incidental  and  subordinate  to  the  course  of  his  historical  action. 

Hence  we  recognize  in  man  a  spiritual  capacity  through  which 
he  is  receptive  of  the  revelation  of  God,  and  can  know  him 
when  revealed  ;  a  spiritual  eye  by  which  he  can  see  the  divine 
light  if  it  shines  on  him  ;  spiritual  susceptibilities  through  which 
he  is  sensitive  to  the  divine  influence  when  it  touches  him. 

Another  position  to  be  held  is  that  if  God  reveals  himself  to 
man,  man  must  receive  the  revelation  and  apprehend,  interpret 


INTRODUCTION. 


5 


and  verify  it  in  his  own  thought.  So  the  outward  world  reveals 
itself  to  man  through  his  sensorium,  but  he  must  apprehend,  in¬ 
terpret  and  verify  his  spontaneous  beliefs  in  thought.  This  is 
what  man  has  been  doing  in  all  ages  ;  it  is  what  science  has  been 
doing,  with  slow  and  laborious  progress,  ever  since  scientific 
thought  began.  This  is  equally  essential  in  attaining  the  knowl¬ 
edge  of  God.  It  is  especially  imperative  in  a  scientific  and  skep¬ 
tical  age.  To  try  to  screen  our  religious  belief  from  the  tests  of 
reason  and  the  scrutiny  of  rational  thought  would  be  to  ad¬ 
mit  the  impossibility  of  defending  it  to  intelligence  as  reason¬ 
able,  and  to  abandon  religion  to  mysticism  and  fanaticism. 

The  three  factors  in  the  knowledge  of  God  are  divine  revela¬ 
tion,  religious  experience  and  rational  thought. 

The  next  step,  therefore,  must  be  to  ascertain  whether  God 
has  made  other  revelations  of  himself  by  which  we  may  verify 
the  spontaneous  belief  arising  in  religious  experience  or  con¬ 
sciousness,  and  correct  and  enlarge  the  idea  of  God  obtained 
from  that  belief  by  thought.  This  is  done  in  the  three  remain¬ 
ing  Parts.  God  has  made  revelation  of  himself  in  the  universe, 
both  in  nature  and  in  man  ;  he  reveals  himself  also  in  Christ. 
By  these  the  reality  of  God’s  revelation  of  himself  in  the  con¬ 
sciousness  of  the  individual  is  tested  and  verified,  and  his  knowl¬ 
edge  of  God  is  enlarged.  The  same  God  whom  he  has  found 
revealed  in  his  own  religious  experience,  he  now  finds  revealed 
in  the  universe  as  the  absolute  Being  ;  revealed  in  the  constitu¬ 
tion  and  course  of  nature,  and  in  the  constitution  and  history 
of  man,  as  the  personal  God,  the  universal  and  absolute  reason 
energizing  in  them  ;  and  revealed  in  Christ  as  the  Redeemer  of 
men  from  sin. 

In  pursuing  this  investigation,  in  Part  II.  it  is  shown  that  an 
absolute  or  unconditioned  Being  exists,  and  is  manifested  in  the 
universe.  This  proposition  is  a  first  principle  of  reason  and  a 
necessary  law  of  thought.  English  and  American  theologians 
have  commonly  passed  this  by,  sometimes  as  merely  fruitless 
metaphysics.  But  it  is  necessary  to  the  true  idea  of  God,  who  is 
not  God  if  he  is  not  the  absolute  Being  ;  and  it  is  necessary  to 
show  the  true  basis  of  the  evidences  following,  and  to  hold  them 
to  their  true  significance  and  point.  In  recognizing  the  absolute 
the  theist  has  thus  far  in  agreement  with  him  the  Spencerian 
agnostics,  and  the  monists,  pantheistic  and  materialistic.  Only 
the  few,  whose  theory  of  knowledge  involves  universal  skepti¬ 
cism,  deny  it.  In  fact,  this  postulation  •  of  the  existence  of  the 


6 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


absolute  Being  as  a  primitive  principle  of  reason  is  the  truth 
sought  in  vain  in  the  a  priori  or  ontological  argument  in  its  vari¬ 
ous  forms. 

In  Part  III.  the  inquiry  will  be,  first,  what  the  absolute  Being 
is  revealed  to  be  in  the  constitution  and  course  of  nature.  In 
the  so-called  cosmological  argument  we  find  that  the  absolute  Be¬ 
ing  is  the  first  Cause  or  Power  on  which  the  universe  depends 
and  which  manifests  itself  in  it.  Mr.  Spencer  agrees  with  us  up 
to  this  point.  Then,  looking  at  the  constitution  and  course  of 
nature,  we  find  evidence  of  a  directing  mind.  This  is  commonly 
called  the  teleological  argument  or  the  argument  from  final 
causes.  But  it  is  much  broader.  We  find  in  nature  manifesta¬ 
tions  of  each  of  the  four  fundamental  ideas  of  reason,  the  True, 
the  Right,  the  Perfect  and  the  Good.  Nature  is  symbolic  of 
rational  thought,  ordered  under  law,  progressive  towards  ideals, 
and  subservient  to  uses  and  productive  of  good.  Thus  in  God 
we  find  the  unity  of  nature  and  the  supernatural  without  any 
break  in  the  law  of  continuity.  It  has  been  claimed  that  evolu¬ 
tion,  if  proved  true,  would  annul  this  whole  line  of  evidence.  But 
it  will  be  shown  that  the  evolution  of  the  Cosmos  as  a  whole 
reveals  truth  or  thought,  is  ordered  under  law,  is  progressive 
through  successive  epochs  toward  the  realization  of  higher  and 
higher  orders  of  being,  and  is  subservient  to  their  uses  ;  and  in¬ 
dicates  the  unity  a,nd  continuity  of  the  progressive  development 
of  the  universe.  If  it  impairs  any  supposed  evidence  of  the  direc¬ 
tion  of  mind  in  details  (though  I  do  not  see  that  it  does  so),  it 
restores  more  in  showing  the  evidence  of  intelligent  direction  in 
the  progressive  development  of  the  Cosmos  as  a  whole,  through 
all  ages  and  by  the  concerted  action  of  innumerable  molecules 
and  forces,  from  the  primitive  homogeneous  stuff.  Then,  sec¬ 
ondly,  from  the  constitution  and  history  of  man,  it  will  be  shown 
that  the  belief  in  God  has  its  roots  in  man’s  reason,  his  will,  his 
susceptibility  to  motives  and  emotions,  in  every  part  of  his  con¬ 
stitution  as  a  rational  personal  being ;  that  its  truth  is  essential 
to  the  right  understanding  of  his  history,  and  to  the  discovery  of 
any  worthy  end  for  which  he  exists. 

In  Part  IV.  the  revelation  of  God  in  Christ  will  be  considered, 
but  not  with  the  design  of  examining  the  evidences  of  Christian¬ 
ity  in  detail.  I  shall  attempt  only  to  ascertain  and  define  the 
essential  idea  of  Christianity,  of  the  revelation  of  God  in  Christ 
and  of  the  miraculous,  and  to  find  a  reasonable  basis  for  the 
possibility  of  miracles  without  interrupting  the  continuity  of  na- 


INTRODUCTION. 


7 


ture  in  its  true  sense.  And,  in  conclusion,  I  shall  show  the 
unity  and  continuity  of  God’s  revelation  of  himself  in  nature 
and  in  the  supernatural  from  the  beginning  of  motion  in  the 
homogeneous  stuff  through  the  successive  epochs  of  the  physical 
evolution  till  rational  man  appears ;  and  then  in  the  progressive 
education  and  development  of  man  in  the  moral  system  until 
the  great  epoch  in  the  progress  of  the  moral  system  when  God 
in  Christ  appears  reconciling  the  world  to  himself,  elevating  men 
in  a  new  birth  by  the  Spirit  into  a  higher  and  spiritual  human¬ 
ity,  which  is  Christ's  kingdom  of  righteousness  and  peace  on 
earth. 

In  prosecuting  our  investigations  along  these  lines,  if  we  would 
take  up  all  the  thought  of  this  age  pertaining  to  the  subject,  we 
must  take  up  not  only  its  doubts  and  difficulties,  but  also  its 
highest  attainments  in  the  conception  of  God.  If  we  would  go 
anywhere  we  must  start  from  where  we  are.  So  in  every  science 
investigation  must*  start  from  the  highest  attainments  already 
made.  It  will  hardly  be  denied  that  this  highest  is  the  Chris¬ 
tian  conception  of  God,  the  absolute  Spirit,  perfect  in  all  power, 
wisdom  and  love,  and  ever  acting  among  men  to  reconcile  the 
world  to  himself.  He  is  the  absolute  Power ;  not,  as  the  Epi¬ 
cureans  taught,  apart  from  the  universe,  but  immanent  and  ac¬ 
tive  in  it;  44  my  father  worketh  hitherto  ;  ”  44  he  is  not  far  from 
each  one  of  us  ;  for  in  him  we  live  and  move  and  have  our  be¬ 
ing.”  He  is  the  absolute  Reason  ;  not,  as  the  Stoics  believed, 
an  impersonal,  unconscious  reason,1  but  reason  alive  and  ener¬ 
gizing  ;  in  God  as  the  absolute  Reason,  all  truth  and  law,  all 
ideals  of  perfection  and  good,  are  eternal  and  archetypal,  and' 
he  is  ever  revealing  himself  by  the  progressive  realization  of 
them  in  the  universe.  He  is  immanent  in  the  universe  ;  not 
the  same  with  it,  as  the  pantheists  teach,  but  transcending  it, 
while  ever  active  in  it,  realizing  in  it  the  thoughts  of  perfect 
wisdom  in  the  action  of  perfect  love.  He  is  in  the  universe ; 
not  merely  in  the  physical  system  evolving  in  necessity  under 
blind  force,  but  also  in  the  spiritual  system  of  personal  free 

agents  under  moral  law,  redeeming  them  from  sin,  educating 

* 

1  I  commonly  use  the  word  reason  not  to  denote  merely  the  power  of  rea¬ 
soning  by  which  the  finite  mind  by  virtue  of  its  rationality  passes  by  inference 
from  the  known  to  the  knowledge  of  what  had  been  unknown,  but  to  denote 
the  mind  or  spirit  itself  considered  as  capable  of  the  rational  intuition  of  prim¬ 
itive  and  universal  principles.  This  implies  in  a  finite  mind  the  power,  as  its 
finiteness  involves  the  necessity,  of  reasoning.  In  God,  the  absolute  Rea¬ 
son,  all  knowledge  is  archetypal  and  eternal. 


8 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


them  to  righteousness  and  good-will,  and  in  the  midst  of  the 
world  progressively  establishing  the  kingdom  of  heaven.  The 
physical  system  is  the  form  or  medium  in  and  through  which 
the  spiritual  manifests  itself.  The  question  to  be  answered  in 
this  volume  is,  “Do  we  find  in  our  own  consciousness,  do  we 
find  in  the  universe,  in  the  constitution  and  course  of  nature, 
or  in  the  constitution  and  history  of  man,  do  we  find  in  Jesus 
Christ  and  the  growth  of  the  kingdom  of  God  on  earth,  evi¬ 
dence  that  such  a  God  is  revealing  himself  therein  to  man  ?  ” 

While  we  begin  with  the  highest  conception  of  God,  we  know 
that  his  revelation  of  himself  to  man  must  be  progressive  and 
can  never  be  completed,  because  it  is  the  revelation  of  the  abso¬ 
lute  and  infinite  God  in  the  finite  and  to  finite  beings.  It  is  a 
common  assumption  in  the  objections  of  skepticism  that  the  ab¬ 
solute  Reason  can  reveal  itself  only  in  a  perfected  and  completed 
universe ;  that  any  imperfection  in  the  medium  through  which 
the  revelation  is  made  proves  imperfection  in  the  God  revealed. 
This  overlooks  the  fact  that  the  distinction  of  the  absolute  or 
unconditioned  and  the  finite,  like  that  of  the  true  and  the  absurd 
or  of  the  right  and  the  wrong,  is  fundamental  in  the  reason,  and 
no  power,  not  even  the  almighty,  can  annul  it.  If  God  reveals 
himself  it  must  be  through  the  medium  of  the  finite  and  to 
finite  beings.  The  revelation  must  be  commensurate  with  the 
medium  through  which  it  is  made  and  with  the  development  of 
the  minds  to  whom  it  is  made.  Hence  both  the  revelation  itself 
and  man’s  apprehension  of  the  God  revealed  must  be  progressive 
and,  at  any  point  of  time,  incomplete.  Hence,  while  it  is  the 
true  God  who  reveals  himself,  man’s  apprehension  of  God  at 
different  stages  of  his  own  development  may  be  not  only  incom¬ 
plete,  but  marred  by  gross  misconceptions. 

Such  is  the  question  before  us  in  this  volume  and  the  general 
course  of  thought  in  answering  it.  I  have  not  attempted  to  fol¬ 
low  out  all  these  lines  of  evidence  in  their  details.  To  do  this 
would  be  impossible  in  a  single  volume  ;  for  there  is  nothing  in 
the  universe  but  what  has  some  significance  in  its  bearing  on  the 
knowledge  of  God.  I  have  aimgd  rather  to  indicate  the  posi¬ 
tions  to  be  taken,  the  lines  in  which  the  evidence  is  found,  and 
the  way  in  which  it  is  to  be  presented  in  its  relations  to  the 
thought  and  life  of  the  present  age. 

The  wide-spread  skepticism  of  the  day,  so  far  as  it  has  an  in¬ 
tellectual  basis,  rests  on  errors  of  principle  or  fact,  or  on  erro¬ 
neous  applications  of  truth  and  fact,  in  empirical  or  philosophical 


INTRODUCTION. 


9 


science.  Hence  it  involves  the  profoundest  questions  both  of 
philosophical  and  of  physical,  anthropological  and  sociological 
science.  But  while  its  roots  are  deep  in  questions  and  researches 
necessarily  confined  to  the  few,  its  ramifications  of  misapprehen¬ 
sion,  doubt  and  disbelief  penetrate  the  thinking  of  the  many. 
Few  study  the  philosophy  of  Kant.  Yet  the  pantheism  which 
has  paralyzed  evangelical  life  and  thought  in  Germany  sprang 
from  it.  Buddhism,  arising  from  analogous  philosophical  errors, 
has  sway  over  hundreds  of  millions.  Few  study  the  philosophy 
of  Sir  W.  Hamilton.  Yet  to  it  Spencer  appeals  in  support  of  the 
agnosticism  which  now  confronts  the  Christian  church  in  its  work 
in  India  and  Japan,  and  is  discussed  in  the  workshops  as  really 
as  in  the  schools  of  Christian  countries.  Few  have  opportunity 
to  master  the  investigations  of  physical  science.  Yet  its  laws  of 
evolution,  of  the  correlation  and  conservation  of  force,  of  the 
uniformity  and  continuity  of  nature,  are  misapplied  in  popular 
lectures  and  literature  to  disprove  the  existence  of  any  divine 
and  even  of  any  supernatural  being.  This  skepticism  must  be 
killed  in  its  deep  roots  if  it  is  to  die  in  its  branches  and  leaves. 
In  defending  theism  it  must  never  be  forgotten  that  belief  in  a 
divinity  wells  up  spontaneously,  like  the  belief  in  the  outward 
world,  and  is  as  well-founded  ;  and  that  in  bringing  men  to  faith 
in  God,  we  must  depend  first  of  all  on  the  power  of  God’s  Spirit 
awakening  their  spiritual  susceptibilities  to  the  consciousness  of 
their  need  of  God  and  to  the  experience  of  his  presence  and  suf¬ 
ficient  grace.  Belief  in  God  without  scientific  investigation  and 
proof  is  reasonable,  as  is  also  belief  in  the  sun,  moon  and  stars, 
in  fire,  air,  earth  and  water,  without  scientific  knowledge  of 
them.  But  when  theism  encounters  the  assaults  of  skepticism 
it  cannot  defend  itself  merely  by  appealing  to  the  spontaneous 
religious  belief.  It  cannot  shrink  from  fairly  meeting  the  pro¬ 
found  questions  and  difficulties  which  skepticism  thrusts  on  it. 
When  intellectually  apprehended  theism  must  meet  these  ques¬ 
tions,  because  it  is  itself  the  true  theorv  of  the  universe,  and  sets 
ft  forth  in  the  unity  of  a  thoroughly  rational  system  grounded  in 
the  absolute  and  perfect  Reason  and  expressing  or  manifesting 
its  eternal  and  archetypal  intelligence.  It  must  be  able  to  con¬ 
vince  the  intellect  not  less  than  to  touch  the  heart.  To  cease 
to  maintain  this  is  to  abandon  the  whole  ground  to  agnosticism 
and  skepticism.  It  is  suicidal  in  the  defense  of  theism  to  sneer 
at  all  investigation  of  its  fundamental  bases  and  of  the  errors 
of  skepticism  respecting  them,  as  metaphysics  confined  to  the 


10 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OE  GOD. 


closets  of  philosophers  and  theologians,  and  of  no  concern  to  or¬ 
dinary  thinkers  or  to  the  interests  of  religion. 

These  deeper  principles  and  facts  in  philosophy  and  in  phys¬ 
ical,  anthropological,  and  sociological  science,  a  right  understand¬ 
ing  and  application  of  which  underlie  an  intelligent  and  reason¬ 
able  knowledge  of  God,  I  have  considered  in  The  Philosophical 
Basis  of  Theism.  In  the  present  volume  we  are  concerned  with 
the  application  of  the  principles  there  established,  in  examining 
the  reality  of  God’s  revelation  of  himself  in  the  experience  or 
consciousness  of  men,  and  the  verification  of  the  same  by  bis 
further  revelation  of  himself  in  the  constitution  and  ongoing  of 
the  universe,  and  in  Christ.  To  avoid  repetition  reference  will 
be  made,  as  occasion  may  require,  to  the  former  volume. 

The  conclusion  reached  is  not  merely  that  Christian  theism 
may  find  a  tolerated,  but  inferior  and  precarious  standing  in  the 
presence  of  empirical  and  philosophical  science  and  advancing  civ¬ 
ilization.  It  is  that  the  existence  of  God,  the  Absolute  Reason, 
the  ultimate  ground  of  the  universe  and  revealing  himself  in  it,  is 
the  necessary  presupposition  of  all  scientific  knowledge ;  that  it 
is  the  necessary  basis  of  all  ethical  philosophy  which  recognizes  an 
immutable  and  universal  moral  law,  of  all  eesthetical  philosophy 
which  recognizes  any  rational  and  universal  standard  of  perfec¬ 
tion  and  beauty,  and  of  all  teleological  philosophy  which  discrim¬ 
inates  among  the  ends  of  human  action,  the  objects  of  pursuit  and 
the  sources  of  enjoyment,  and  determines  in  the  light  of  reason 
and  by  its  unchangeable  standard  what  is  worthy  of  man  as  a 
rational  being,  what  is  the  true  good  which  has  worth  in  itself 
and  under  all  changing  conditions  is  unchanged  and  everlasting  ; 
that  the  revelation  of  God  in  Christ  redeeming  man  from  sin 
and  establishing  and  advancing  his  kingdom  of  righteousness  and 
good-will  gives  the  only  complete  and  satisfactory  philosophy  of 
human  history ;  that  in  it  alone  is  given  the  knowledge  of  the 
true  goal  of  human  progress  and  the  true  realization  of  the  well¬ 
being  of  mankind  in  God’s  kingdom  of  righteousness  and  good¬ 
will  on  earth,  and  the  motive,  light  and  quickening  energy  effec¬ 
tive  for  its  progressive  realization  ;  and  that  the  progress  of 
Christ’s  kingdom  takes  into  harmony  with  and  subservience  to 
itself  the  advancing  knowledge  of  every  age,  meets  its  questions, 
its  difficulties  and  objections,  and  finds  in  the  ever  enlarging 
knowledge  of  the  universe  an  ever  enlarging  revelation  of  God. 
And  thus  we  find  a  true  significance  in  the  words  of  Clement  of 


INTRODUCTION. 


11 


Alexandria  :  “  Philosophers  are  children,  unless  they  have  been 
made  men  by  Christ.’ '  1 

This  volume  is  the  result  of  the  investigation  and  discussion  of 
this  subject  in  my  instruction  of  successive  classes  of  theological 
students  for  many  }^ears.  In  these  studies  we  have  endeavored 
to  avail  ourselves  of  all  the  new  light  from  the  investigations  and 
discoveries  of  our  time,  and  to  meet  fairly  its  questions  and  dif¬ 
ficulties.  We  have  endeavored  to  find  the  harmony  of  its  empir¬ 
ical  and  philosophical  science  with  Christian  theism,  to  compre¬ 
hend  its  discoveries  not  only  in  the  unity  of  scientific  systems,  but 
in  the  broader  unity  of  the  conception  of  the  universe  as  the  pro¬ 
gressive  revelation  of  God.  I  do  not  offer  the  book  to  the  public 
with  any  thought  that  it  is  a  complete  presentation  of  the  reasons 
for  believing  the  existence  of  God,  the  reality  of  his  revelation 
of  himself,  and  the  harmony  of  Christian  theism  with  empirical 
and  philosophical  science,  but  only  in  the  hope  that  it  may  con¬ 
tribute  something  to  this  result ;  that  it  may  help  to  expose 
the  fallacy  of  the  objections  of  skepticism,  to  confirm  the  faith 
and  enlarge  the  knowledge  of  believers,  and  to  help  candid  in¬ 
quirers  who  in  perplexity  and  doubt  are  seeking  God  if  haply 
they  may  feel  after  him  and  find  him  ;  though  he  is  not  far  from 
every  one  of  us.  If  it  is  little  that  it  contributes,  yet  our  Lord 
pronounces  his  blessing  on  the  servant  who  is  faithful  in  that 
which  is  little,  and  rebukes  the  servant  who  hid  the  talent  in¬ 
trusted  to  him  by  his  Lord  because  it  was  but  one. 

1  Stromata,  bk.  i.  chap.  xi. 


. 


. 


PART  I. 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  EXPERIENCE  OR  CONSCIOUSNESS  AS 
THE  OBJECT  OF  RELIGIOUS  FAITH  AND  SERVICE. 


“Here  have  we  in  brief  the  ground-thought  of  all  philosophy  of  religion.  It  sets  forth 
the  religion  in  its  absolute  truth,  while  it  recognizes  in  it  the  progressive  steps  and  changing 
forms  through  which  the  spirit  elevates  itself  to  the  true  freedom  in  God  which  in  its 
essence  it  demands.”  — Pfleiderer,  Religionsphilosophie,  p.  137. 

“It  is  after  all  not  our  human  conception  of  God  nor  the  manner  in  which  we  worship 
him,  but  the  consciousness  that  there  is  a  God  and  that  we  depend  on  his  guidance  and 
providence,  that  constitutes  the  essence  of  religion;  and  herein  every  worshiper  of  Divinity 
is  alike,  no  matter  as  to  the  form  of  worship.  Have  we  not  all  one  Father?  Has  not  one 
God  created  us?  ”  —  Hebrew  Journal. 

“  The  religious  man  does  not  desire  communion  with  his  own  thoughts,  but  real  com¬ 
munion  with  God.  .  .  .  The  religious  impulse  longs  for  contact  with  God,  and  not  simply 
with  doctrines  or  past  history.”  —  Dorner,  System  of  Christian  Doctrine ,  vol.  i.  pp.  122, 
109,  translation. 

“God  is  essentially  spirit.  Religion  is  a  relation  of  spirit  to  spirit.  This  relation  of 
spirit  to  spirit  lies  at  the  ground  of  religion.”  “  He  who  has  not  broadened  his  heart 
beyond  the  impulses  of  the  finite,  who  has  not  attained  the  exaltation  of  himself  in  the 
aspiration  for  the  eternal  in  the  presentiment  or  feeling  of  it,  and  has  not  seen  into  the 
pure  atmosphere  of  the  spirit,  let  him  not  touch  the  matter  here  to  be  handled.”  —  Hegel, 
Philosophie  der  Religion ,  vol.  i.  pp.  98  and  6. 

“Where  shall  we  find  the  principle  which  includes  the  whole  spirit  of  a  society?  In  the 
arts,  the  literature,  the  philosophical  systems,  the  civil  institutions?  Without  doubt,  if  in 
every  people  there  were  not  an  element  more  profound  than  all  that,  more  intimate,  more 
inseparable  from  the  very  idea  of  the  social  life.  And  this  genius  eternally  present,  of 
which  the  very  substance  of  the  peoples  forms  itself,  what  can  it  be  if  it  is  not  religion, 
since  from  it  issue,  as  so  many  necessary  consequences,  political  institutions,  the  arts,  po¬ 
etry,  philosophy,  and,  up  to  a  certain  point,  even  the  course  of  events.  Do  not  imagine 
that  you  understand  a  people  if  you  have  not  pushed  your  inquiry  up  to  their  gods.  .  .  . 
If  you  know  the  religious  doctrine  of  a  society,  you  know  truly  for  what  and  how  it  lives ; 
you  possess  its  secret ;  it  cannot  put  you  off  with  any  illusion  either  by  its  laughter  or  its 
tears ;  you  read  not  only  the  thoughts  on  its  face,  but  those  which  are  formed  and  inscribed 
by  God  himself  in  the  depths  of  its  spirit.”  — Quinet,  Le  Genie  des  Religions ,  p.  12. 

‘•Religion  is  for  our  consciousness  that  region  in  which  all  riddles  of  the  world  are 
solved,  all  conflicts  of  thought  are  explained  and  harmonized,  all  pains  and  sorrows  are 
stilled,  the  region  of  eternal  truth,  eternal  rest,  eternal  peace.  That  by  which  man  is 
man,  is  thought  ;  more  exactly  in  the  concrete  it  is  spirit.  From  him  as  spirit  issue  all  the 
manifold  creations  of  science,  art,  political  institutions.  But  all  these  manifold  creations 


14 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


and  all  farther  complications  of  human  relations,  activities,  enjoyments,  all  which  has 
worth  for  man,  in  which  he  seeks  his  happiness  and  glory,  find  their  ultimate  centre  in 
religion,  in  the  thought,  the  consciousness,  the  feeling  of  God.  God  is  the  beginning  of  all 
and  the  end  of  all;  as  all  issues  from  him  so  all  goes  back  to  him;  thus  he  is  the  centre 
that  quickens,  animates  and  inspires  all.  In  religion  man  sets  himself  in  relation  with 
this  centre,  in  which  all  his  other  relations  come  together ;  and  therewith  he  exalts  himself 
to  the  highest  grade  of  consciousness  and  into  the  region  which,  free  from  all  other  attrac¬ 
tion,  is  the  purely  satisfying,  the  unrestricted,  free,  and  an  end  for  itself  ...  As  feeling 
this  relation  to  God  is  the  free  enjoyment  which  we  call  blessedness ;  as  activity  it  is  nothing 
else  but  to  manifest  the  glory  of  God  and  to  reveal  his  lordship;  and  for  the  man,  it  is  no 
more  to  live  for  himself,  his  own  interest  and  vain-glory,  but  for  the  absolute  end.  All 
peoples  know  that  the  religious  consciousness  is  that  in  which  they  possess  truth,  and  they 
have  regarded  religion  always  as  their  dignity  and  as  the  Sunday  of  their  lives.  What¬ 
ever  awakens  doubt  and  anguish,  all  cumber  and  care,  all  limited  interests  of  the  finite  we 
leave  behind  on  the  sandbank  of  the  temporal;  as  from  the  highest  peak  of  a  mountain, 
far  removed  from  all  definite  view  of  the  earth,  we  look  restfully  over  all  boundaries,  so 
with  the  spiritual  eye  the  man,  lifted  from  the  hard  reality  of  life,  looks  on  it  only  as  a 
view,  whose  lights  and  shadows  and  divisions,  softened  to  eternal  x-epose,  are  in  this  region 
mirrored  in  the  beams  of  the  spiritual  sun.”  —  Hegel,  Philosophic  der  Religion ,  vol.  i. 
Einleitung,  pp.  3-5. 


/ 


CHAPTER  L 


RELIGION. 

Religion  is  man’s  consciousness  of  relation  to  a  superhuman 
and  supernatural  power,  which  we  may  call  a  divinity;  and  mani¬ 
fests  itself  in  spontaneous  belief  and  feeling,  and  in  voluntary 
action  designed  to  be  a  service  acceptable  to  the  divinity.  It  is 
man’s  inward  life  and  outward  action  responsive  to  his  relation 
to  a  divinity.  It  is  in  reality  the  conscious  response  of  the  hu¬ 
man  spirit  to  the  presence  and  action  of  God,  who  is  ever  present 
and  ever  active.1 

1.  Christianity  is  the  absolute  or  universal  religion,  but  it  is 
not  the  only  religion. 

It  is  a  common  opinion  among  Christian  people  that  religion 
is  properly  ascribed  only  to  those  who  are  devoutly  living  lives  of 
Christian  faith  and  love.  But  this  is  not  accordant  with  the  ac¬ 
cepted  usage  of  the  word,  which  applies  this  name  to  all  the  re¬ 
ligions  of  the  world,  whether  polytheistic  or  monotheistic,  whether 
pagan  or  Christian.  The  life  of  faith  and  love  is  doubtless  es¬ 
sential  to  acceptance  with  God,  but  not  to  the  definition  of  re¬ 
ligion. 

Christianity,  as  the  absolute  religion,  does  not  deny  that  there 
are  other  religions.  On  the  contrary,  it  takes  up  into  itself  all 
which  is  true  and  right  in  the  ethnic  religions.  It  is  in  antago¬ 
nism  to  them  only  so  far  as  they  are  erroneous  in  belief,  practice 
or  spirit.  It  is  the  goal  toward  which  they  are  blindly  groping, 
the  redemption  of  which  they  obscurely  feel  the  need  and  for 
which  they  dimly  hope.  It  would  bring  them  to  an  end,  as  the 
sun  brings  the  light  of  the  stars  to  an  end,  not  by  quenching  it, 
but  by  absorbing  it  in  the  light  which  fills  the  firmament. 

If  this  is  not  so,  then  outside  of  Christianity  and  antecedent  to 

1  “  A  religion  is  the  belief  in  a  superhuman  being  or  beings,  whose  actions 
are  seen  in  the  works  of  creation,  and  in  such  relations  toward  this  being  or 
beings  as  prompt  the  believer  to  acts  of  propitiation  and  worship,  and  to  the 
regulation  of  conduct.”  — Professor  Wm.  D.  Whitney,  Princeton  Review ,  May, 
1881,  p.  438. 


16 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


it  there  is  and  has  been  no  religion  in  the  world.  Then  there 
would  be  no  evidence  that  religion  is  constitutional  in  man  and 
characteristic  of  humanity  always  and  everywhere.  Then  re¬ 
ligion  begins  on  earth  suddenly,  after  mankind  had  existed  ages 
without  it ;  and  in  a  magical  way  without  any  vital  organic  con¬ 
nection  with  human  history  and  growth.  Then  it  is  something 
which  comes  down  on  man  from  without,  but  has  no  root  in  hu¬ 
manity  and  no  living  growth  in  human  history. 

2.  The  religiousness  of  man  is  the  response  of  his  spirit  to  the 
presence  of  the  true  God,  ever  active  and  revealing  himself  in  the 
constitution  and  ongoing  of  nature,  and  in  the  constitution  and 
history  of  man.  Man  is  religious  because  he  lives  in  the  pres¬ 
ence  and  amid  the  activities  of  God,  and  is  constituted  so  as  to 
receive  the  divine  influence,  and  to  become  aware  of  his  presence 
through  it.  The  lowest  savage  lives  in  the  presence  and  amid 
the  activities  of  the  everywhere  energizing  God.  He  becomes 
aware  of  his  presence  through  his  spiritual  sensibility,  as  he  be¬ 
comes  aware  of  the  trees  and  the  sun  through  his  physical  sensi¬ 
bility.  In  the  religions  of  the  world  we  see  man’s  universal  con¬ 
sciousness  that  he  lives  in  the  presence  of  this  mysterious  reality 
and  is  dependent  on  it.  In  every  stage  of  human  progress,  in 
every  type  of  human  life,  man  comes  in  sight  of  the  superhuman 
and  the  supernatural. 

3.  The  idea  which  in  thought  the  man  forms  of  the  divinity 
of  whose  presence  he  becomes  conscious  is  at  first  obscure,  defec¬ 
tive,  and  usually  erroneous.  It  is  long  before  the  true  idea  is  at¬ 
tained.  His  knowledge  of  God  in  this  respect  is  analogous  to 
his  knowledge  of  the  external  world.  Man  has  always  lived  in 
the  presence  of  the  sun,  moon  and  stars,  and  of  the  earth,  and 
has  been  acted  on  by  their  never  ceasing  energies.  He  is  aware 
of  their  presence  and  has  some  right  ideas  of  them.  But  he 
thinks  of  the  sky  as  a  blue  dome  dotted  with  shining  spots,  of 
the  earth  as  flat  and  motionless,  and  of  the  sun  and  stars  as  mov¬ 
ing  over  it.  His  ideas  of  nature  are  as  erroneous  as  his  ideas  of 
God,  and  his  progress  towards  right  ideas  as  slow.  But  what¬ 
ever  his  errors  of  thought,  it  was  the  real  sun  and  stars  and  earth 
which  were  always  acting  on  him  and  revealing  themselves.  So 
it  was  the  true  God  who  was  always  revealing  himself  by  his 
presence  and  action,  and  of  whom  man  has  always  shown  him¬ 
self  conscious,  however  erroneous  his  early  ideas  of  him  ana 
however  slow  his  progress  to  the  knowledge  of  him  as  the  one 
true  God. 


RELIGION. 


17 


4.  In  all  religions  the  object  of  religious  belief,  feeling  and 
service  is  a  supernatural 1  and  superhuman  being.  God  is  the 
Absolute  Spirit.  These  two  words  denote  the  two  essential  ideas 
of  the  Deity.  In  God’s  universal  presence  and  action  he  reveals 
himself  as  the  Infinite  or  Absolute  Spirit.  In  the  spontaneous 
religiousness  of  man,  which  is  the  response  of  the  soul  to  the 
presence  of  God,  we  should  expect  to  find  traces  at  least  of  im¬ 
pressions  made  in  his  consciousness  by  each  of  these  aspects  of 
the  Deity.  These  words  would  not  exist  in  the  language  of  a 
rude  people,  and  the  ideas  which  they  express  would  not  be  de¬ 
fined  and  formulated  in  thought.  But  there  would  be  some  dim 
and  undefined  feeling  of  the  infinite,  thought  of  probably,  if  at 
all,  as  the  superhuman  ;  and  some  feeling  or  sense  of  divinity  as 
spirit  or  supernatural.  In  their  religion  would  be  spontaneous 
feelings  and  beliefs  responsive  to  both  the  infinite  and  the  spirit¬ 
ual  in  God.  And  this  we  find  to  be  the  fact. 

The  sense  of  the  infinite  appears  in  wonder  and  awe  and  fear 
before  the  transcendent  powers  of  nature.  The  world  confronts 
the  man  at  every  turn  with  beings  and  energies  beyond  and 
above  his  comprehension,  and  beyond  and  above  his  power.  He 
lives  in  the  presence  of  the  infinite,  which  reveals  itself  on  every 
side  in  the  inaccessible  sky,  in  the  great  and  silent  forests,  in  the 
ocean,  in  the  impassable  rivers,  in  the  dawning  light  morning  by 
morning,  in  thunder,  lightning  and  storm,  in  the  springing  of 
plants  from  the  seed,  the  coming  forth  of  grass,  leaves  and 
flowers  in  the  spring,  and  in  all  the  mystery  of  birth  and  life. 
Thus  everywhere  and  always  confronted  and  awed  by  what  tran¬ 
scends  both  his  comprehension  and  his  strength,  he  feels  himself 
hemmed  in,  limited,  dependent,  in  the  grasp  of  these  resistless 
and  incomprehensible  powers.  His  divinity  is  always  superhu¬ 
man. 

On  the  other  hand,  he  knows  in  himself  thought,  feeling  and 
will ;  from  his  own  voluntary  action  he  gets  his  first  knowledge 
of  power  or  causal  efficiency.  He  naturally  ascribes  the  effects 
which  he  witnesses  around  him  to  a  thinking,  voluntary  power 
like  himself.  This  tendency  is  discovered  now  among  the  lower 
tribes  of  savages.  One  who  saw  a  watch  for  the  first  time  sup¬ 
posed  it  to  be  alive,  and  when  it  had  run  down  and  stopped,  he 
said  it  was  asleep.  A  missionary  to  a  savage  people  sent  a  boy 
with  fruits  to  another  missionary’s  family  in  the  neighborhood, 

1  Every  spirit,  every  personal  being  endowed  with  intuitive  reason  and  free 
will,  is  supernatural,  that  is,  above  nature. 

2 


18 


THE  SELF-EEVELATION  OF  GOD. 


with  a  letter  specifying  the  number.  The  boy  had  learned  that 
a  letter  communicated  information.  Therefore  in  a  retired  spot 
on  the  way  he  hid  the  letter  under  a  stone  and  ate  some  of  the 
fruits.  He  then  took  out  the  letter  and  delivered  it  with  the  re¬ 
mainder.  When  asked  for  what  was  missing,  he  was  astonished, 
and  wondered  how  the  letter  hidden  under  a  stone  could  have 
known  what  he  was  doing.  So  the  savage  regards  the  tran¬ 
scendent  and  incomprehensible  powers,  before  which  he  is  awed, 
as  intelligent  like  himself.  In  the  sense  of  his  dependence  he 
cries  to  them  for  help,  and  considers  by  what  offerings  or  service 
he  can  avert  their  displeasure  and  gain  their  favor.1 

Some  consciousness  of  the  divinity  as  a  personal  being  or  spirit 
is  inseparable  from  religion,  because  religion  implies  in  its  essence 
communion  with  the  divinity  in  service  rendered  with  the  expec¬ 
tation  of  favors  returned.  Rothe  says  :  “  The  religious  self-con¬ 
sciousness  is  immediate  consciousness  of  relation  to  God  as  a 
reciprocal  fellowship,  a  communion  with  God  ;  but  this  is  possible 
only  with  a  personal  God.  Only  if  God  is  an  I,  can  he  be  to  us  a 
Thou,  as  he  always  is  to  the  religious,  —  even  at  the  lowest  grade 
of  religion  ;  for  at  this  grade  it  is  essentially  praying.”2 

Thus  the  spontaneous  religiousness  of  man  is  not  the  sense  of 
the  infinite  alone  nor  the  sense  of  the  spiritual  alone.  The  divin¬ 
ity  is  not  solely  a  transcendent  and  incomprehensible  power  man¬ 
ifesting  itself  everywhere  ;  nor  is  it  solely  a  spirit-like  man  (a 
ghost,  a  dead  ancestor  reappearing).  It  combines  both.  The 
primitive  and  spontaneous  religion  is  the  response  in  human  con¬ 
sciousness,  however  dim  and  incomplete,  to  the  presence  and  ac¬ 
tion  of  God,  the  absolute  Reason,  the  eternal  Spirit,  of  whose 
archetypal  thought  the  universe  is  the  expression,  and  who  is  im¬ 
manent  in  the  universe  and  ever  revealing  himself  through  it. 

5.  In  the  progress  of  man,  the  form  in  which  he  conceives 
the  divinity  in  thought  changes,  being  gradually  cleared,  cor¬ 
rected  and  filled  out ;  but,  because  he  is  always  confronted  with 
the  infinite  and  the  spiritual  or  supernatural,  these  essential  ele¬ 
ments  always  appear. 

At  first  the  horizon  which  separates  the  finite  from  the  infinite 
or  absolute,  what  man  comprehends  and  controls  from  what  tran¬ 
scends  his  knowledge  and  his  power,  is  close  at  hand.  In  a 
primitive  animism  he  believes  that  everything  unfamiliar,  that 
acts,  is  alive,  and  that  any  object  may  be  the  abode  or  shrine  of  a 

1  Philosophical  Basis  of  Theism,  pp.  555-557. 

2  Zur  Dogmatik,  i.  p.  25. 


RELIGION. 


19 


divinity.  As  he  advances  in  knowledge  and  culture  the  horizon 
recedes  ;  the  area  of  the  intelligible  and  familiar  enlarges.  Still 
in  the  greater  powers  of  nature  he  is  awed  in  the  presence  of 
the  infinite  and  sees  the  action  of  a  mind.  He  worships  greater 
gods,  who  are  the  ruling  energies  respectively  in  the  sun,  the 
moon,  the  air,  the  sea  and  other  greater  powers  of  nature.  Also 
he  deifies  the  man  who  has  exerted  powers  greater  than  he 
knows  in  his  own  experience  for  the  deliverance  of  men  from 
evils  or  the  bestowment  of  signal  good. 

In  his  ruder  condition  what  becomes  familiar  and  explicable 
ceases  to  awaken  religious  sentiments  ;  and  in  what  is  extraordi¬ 
nary  and  anomalous  he  continues  to  see  the  divine.  But  as  he 
advances  further  and  conies  to  recognize  the  uniformity  of  nature, 
the  fixedness  of  its  laws  and  the  beauty  of  the  cosmos,  he  begins 
to  see  the  infinite  and  the  presence  of  reason  in  these,  and  thus 
attains  a  nobler  idea  of  the  infinite  Spirit  revealing  himself  in  the 
universe.  Nor  does  any  progress  in  science  remove  the  religious 
consciousness  of  God,  or  the  intellectual  necessity  of  recognizing 
the  absolute  Spirit.  In  explaining  the  solar  system  and  all  the 
interaction  of  masses  of  matter  science  recognizes  gravitation. 
But  whether  it  is  regarded  as  a  force  inherent  in  matter  or  as 
communicated  through  an  intervening  medium,  the  explanations 
issue  in  the  unexplainable.  Science  announces  the  law  of  the  cor¬ 
relation  and  conservation  of  force,  and  begins  to  think  it  has  un¬ 
veiled  the  secret  of  the  universe'"?'  it  identifies  molar  motion  with 
molecular,  it  explains  light  by  the  vibrations  of  an  all-pervading 
ether  ;  but  as  it  unfolds  the  explanation  it  finds  itself  inextric¬ 
ably  involved  in  difficulties,  and  even  confronted  with  seeming 
contradictions  and  impossibilities.  It  resorts  to  atoms  and  mole¬ 
cules  only  to  find  that  they  cannot  be  ultimate,  but  as  “  manu¬ 
factured  articles  ”  carry  the  thought  to  a  power  behind  them¬ 
selves.1  The  universe,  seen  in  the  clearest  light  of  science,  con¬ 
tinues  to  reveal  through  and  behind  itself  the  absolute  Spirit 
that  transcends  our  comprehension  and  that  continually  reveals 
itself  in  the  universe  as  the  power,  energizing  in  it,  that  sustains 
and  directs  it.  Man  has  always  found  the  supernatural  as  the 
necessary  background  of  the  natural.  Hartmann  says  :  “  Very 
little  thought  is  required  to  satisfy  one’s  self  that  the  natural,  all 
and  everywhere,  rests  on  the  supernatural  and  terminates  in  it. 
Every  atom  of  nature  still  preaches  its  supernatural  origin  and 
being,  and  every  force  of  the  mechanical  process  terminates  in 
-  Philosophical  Basis  of  Theism,  pp  416-425. 


20 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


interior  emotion,  which  appoints  to  the  will  its  ends.” 1  The 
progress  of  science  does  not  set  the  supernatural  aside,  but  re¬ 
veals  more  clearly  its  reality  and  grandeur ;  reveals  it  as  the 
absolute  Reason,  encompassing  not  nature  only,  but  the  whole 
contents  of  human  knowledge,  and  giving  it  unity,  consistency 
and  reality.  Not  only  has  science  failed  to  remove  this  all-en¬ 
compassing  supernatural,  bat  it  has  shown  it  to  be  the  most  cer¬ 
tain  and  fundamental  of  realities  ;  so  that  if  we  cease  to  know 
the  absolute  Reason,  we  cease  to  know  anything. 

Religion  existed  before  empirical  science,  before  philosophy 
and  theology.  The  feelings  and  services  in  which  it  has  mani¬ 
fested  itself  have  been  various ;  but  they  all  disclose  the  essential 
characteristics  of  religion.  The  terrors  of  Shamanism  prompting 
its  votaries  to  avert  the  malign  influence  of  evil  spirits,  the  rap¬ 
ture  of  Edwards  contemplating  the  mystery  of  the  Trinity,  the 
self-sacrificing  love  of  Paul  suffering  the  loss  of  all  things  and 
rejoicing  in  the  sacrifice  that  he  may  bring  to  men  the  glad  tid¬ 
ings  of  God’s  grace  revealed  in  Christ,  all  the  multiform  motives 
and  emotions  of  the  religions  of  men,  agree  in  revealing  a  con¬ 
sciousness  of  relation  to  a  superhuman  and  supernatural  being. 

This  conception  of  religion,  necessary  from  the  theistic  point 
of  view,  is  also  sustained  by  the  facts  ascertained  by  anthropolo¬ 
gists  in  their  investigations  of  the  religions  of  the  world.2 

6.  Conversely,  no  state  of  consciousness,  in  whatever  beliefs, 
feelings  or  services  manifested,  is  religion,  if  void  of  all  indica¬ 
tions  of  impressions  received  from  the  Infinite  and  the  Super¬ 
natural. 

Man’s  constitutional  religiousness  cannot  of  itself  give  him  a 
religion.  There  must  be  a  divinity  as  the  object  of  the  constitu¬ 
tional  religiousness  or  there  can  be  no  religion.  Man’s  constitu¬ 
tional  susceptibility  to  impressions  of  sense  could  give  him  no 
knowledge  of  sensible  objects  nor  of  himself  as  sensitive,  if  there 
were  no  outward  world  to  act  on  his  sensorium  and  thus  reveal 
itself  to  him  and  reveal  his  own  sensitive  capacity  to  himself. 
So  man’s  susceptibility  to  religious  impressions  could  give  him 
no  knowledge  of  a  divinity  nor  of  his  own  religious  susceptibility, 

1  Die  Religion  des  Geistes,  part  B,  p.  118,  Hitchcock’s  Trans. 

2  “  Certain  it  is  that  the  oldest  religions  must  have  contained  the  germs  of 
all  the  later  growth  and,  though  perhaps  more  thoroughly  naturalistic  than  the 
most  naturalistic  we  now  know,  must  have  shown  some  faint  traces  at  least  of 
awakening  moral  feeling.  .  .  .  The  gods  are  no  mere  names.  They  are  not 
the  natural  phenomena  themselves,  but  spirits,  lords,  ruling  them.”  —  Prof, 
C.  P.  Tiele,  Religions ,  in  Encyc.  Brit.,  vol.  xx.  367,  366. 


RELIGION. 


21 


if  there  were  no  divinity  to  act  on  his  religious  susceptibility,  and 
reveal  himself  through  it  and  therein  reveal  to  the  man  his 
own  constitutional  susceptibility  to  religion.  God  is  the  infinite 
Spirit.  If,  by  the  presence  and  action  of  God  everywhere,  man’s 
religious  susceptibility  is  awakened  at  once  to  the  consciousness 
of  a  divinity  and  of  his  own  religiousness,  this  consciousness 
must  disclose  more  or  less  clear  impressions  both  of  the  infinitude 
and  the  spirituality  of  the  divinity.  Without  these  there  can  be 
no  religion. 

Man’s  constitutional  religiousness  and  the  necessity  of  finding 
an  object  for  it  are  now  very  generally  admitted  ;  and  various 
objects  other  than  a  personal  divinity  have  been  proposed  to 
satisfy  it.  For  it  is  now  contended  that  there  may  be  religion 
in  its  full  and  proper  significance  without  any  consciousness  of  a 
divinity  as  its  object. 

Agnosticism  tells  us  of  “  worship  mostly  of  the  silent  sort  at 
the  altar  of  the  Unknowable.”  1  Mr.  Spencer  recognizes  the  ex¬ 
istence  of  absolute  Power  as  a  necessary  postulate  in  all  scientific 
knowledge,  and  also  as  the  object  of  religion.  This  belief  in  the 
existence  of  the  Absolute,  as  constitutional  in  man,  must  persist 
through  all  human  evolution.  Accordingly  he  says  :  “  No  one 
need  expect  that  the  religious  consciousness  will  die  away  or  will 
change  the  lines  of  its  evolution.  Its  specialities  of  form,  once 
strongly  marked  and  becoming  less  distinct  during  past  mental 
progress,  will  continue  to  fade  ;  but  the  substance  of  the  con¬ 
sciousness  will  persist.”2  He  recognizes,  however,  the  absolute 
only.  This  is  but  one  of  the  elements  essential  in  the  idea  of 
God,  and  therefore  cannot  satisfy  either  the  religious  conscious¬ 
ness  or  the  demands  of  reason.  Religion  supposes  communica¬ 
tion  of  some  sort  between  the  worshiper  and  the  divinity.  Mr. 
Spencer  argues  with  much  insistence  that  because  science  can 
never  remove  mystery  from  the  universe,  therefore  religion  will 
always  persist.  But  religion  cannot  subsist  on  the  mere  mystery 
of  an  unknowable  Absolute.3 

1  Huxley,  Lay  Sermons,  pp.  19,  20. 

2  The  Study  of  Sociology,  chap.  xii.  p.  311. 

3  Mr.  Spencer,  in  the  Principles  of  Sociology  (part  i.  chaps,  xiii.-xxv.  pp. 
185-440),  maintains  that  religion  and  the  idea  of  a  divinity  have  their  origin 
in  the  worship  of  ancestors,  this  having  been  preceded  by  a  belief  in  ghosts. 
This  seems  to  contradict  his  doctrine  that  the  object  of  worship  is  the  un¬ 
knowable  absolute.  It  is  untenable  also  because  the  idea  of  a  divinity  cannot 
have  originated  in  a  belief  in  ghosts  ;  man  must  have  had  an  idea  of  the  spirit 
in  the  body  before  he  could  believe  in  its  survival  after  death.  Thus  Mr. 


22 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


On  the  other  hand,  the  followers  of  Comte,  who  worship  hu¬ 
manity,  isolate  the  personal  or  spiritual  element  in  the  idea  of 
God,  and  make  it  the  object  of  the  religious  consciousness  to  the 
exclusion  of  the  absolute  or  superhuman.  This  cannot  satisfy 
either  the  needs  of  religion  or  the  demands  of  reason.  It  does 
not  carry  the  thought  or  the  heart  beyond  finite  nature  and 
man  to  an  absolute  Spirit  as  the  object  of  trust  and  service.  In 
fact,  it  presents  no  being  whatever  as  the  object  of  worship,  not 
any  one  man  nor  the  human  race  itself.  Its  object  of  worship  is 
a  mere  abstraction  in  the  worshiper's  own  mind  of  the  nobler 
qualities  of  humanity  disclosed  in  the  whole  course  of  human  his¬ 
tory.  It  can  satisfy  the  heart  of  the  worshiper  only  as  he  una¬ 
wares  hypostasizes  this  abstraction  of  all  which  is  true,  right,  per¬ 
fect  and  good  in  man,  in  the  conception  of  an  all-transcending 
Spirit  perfect  in  power,  wisdom  and  love,  and  thus  ignorantly 
worships  the  true  God. 

Since  man  is  constituted  with  religious  needs  and  susceptibil¬ 
ities  there  is  no  reason  to  fear  that  religion  will  cease  to  be  a 
power  in  human  history ;  nor  that  its  object  will  fade  out  either 
into  the  formless  unknowable  or  into  an  abstraction  of  qualities 
without  a  being.  The  object  of  the  religion  which  is  to  survive 
through  all  changes  will  be,  in  some  more  or  less  adequate  form 
of  conception,  the  absolute  Reason  or  Spirit  revealing  himself  in 
the  consciousness  of  men. 

Matthew  Arnold  would  identify  religion  with  morality  :  “  Re- 

Spencer’s  own  theory  with  logical  necessity  carries  us  back  to  the  fact  that 
man’s  idea  of  a  spirit  originated  in  his  knowledge  of  himself  as  a  power  of  in¬ 
visible  thought,  volition  and  energy.  This  is  a  simple  and  natural  explana¬ 
tion,  accordant  with  common  sense,  sustained  by  the  observation  of  facts,  com¬ 
pletely  satisfactory  as  an  explanation  of  the  idea.  To  account  for  its  origin  it 
is  needless  to  resort  to  man’s  shadow  or  his  dreams.  Hence  the  movements 
in  nature  which  he  sees  about  him  he  attributes  to  a  mind  or  spirit  like  his 
own.  Mr.  Spencer  himself  seems  to  imply  as  much,  when,  in  defending  his 
theory,  he  says  :  “  The  necessity  we  are  under  to  think  of  the  external  energy 
in  terms  of  internal  energy,  gives  rather  a  spiritualistic  than  a  materialistic 
aspect  to  the  universe.”  (Nineteenth  Cent.,  Jan.  1885,  p.  10.)  There  are 
insuperable  difficulties  in  carrying  out  this  ghost-theory  of  the  origin  of  relig¬ 
ion  in  its  details.  For  example,  in  explaining  on  this  theory  the  worship  of 
the  sun  and  moon,  of  mountains,  trees  and  animals,  Mr.  Spencer  says  that  the 
names  of  these  objects  were  sometimes  given  to  men,  or  that  a  great  chief 
might  be  figuratively  called  a  mountain  ;  and  that  after  death  the  person  might 
be  confounded  with  the  object  whose  name  he  had  borne.  The  whole  argu¬ 
ment  is  a  striking  example  of  special  pleading  under  the  powerful  bias  of  a 
preconceived  and  favorite  theory. 


RELIGION. 


23 


ligion  is  ethics  heightened,  enkindled,  lit  up  by  feeling  ;  the  pas¬ 
sage  from  morality  to  religion  is  made  when  to  morality  is  ap¬ 
plied  emotion.”  1 

But  morality  without  religious  faith,  however  heightened  and 
enkindled,  is  not  religion  and  cannot  meet  the  religious  needs  of 
the  soul.  It  is  not  every  feeling  which  lifts  morality  into  re¬ 
ligion,  but  only  those  which  spring  from  the  consciousness  of  a 
divinity.  This  is  implied  in  Kant’s  definition  :  “  Religion  is  the 
recognition  of  all  our  duties  as  divine  commands.”  2  Man's  con¬ 
sciousness  of  his  relation  to  God  penetrates  with  its  influence 
every  sphere  of  life  and  action.  As  he  comes  to  know  the  divin¬ 
ity  clearly  as  the  eternal  Spirit,  the  absolute  Reason,  he  sees  that 
all  truth  and  law  are  eternal  in  him,  that  all  men  are  in  a  moral 
system  in  their  common  relation  to  him,  and  that  the  law  itself 
is  the  law  of  universal  love.  In  the  consciousness  of  his  depen¬ 
dence  on  God  as  a  creature  he  sees  that  the  only  life  which  can 
accord  with  the  reality  of  his  own  condition,  the  only  life  which 
can  accord  with  truth  and  law  and  be  an  acceptable  service  to 
God,  must  be  the  life  of  faith  or  trust  in  the  God  on  whom  he 
absolutely  depends,  putting  fortli  its  energies  in  acts  of  universal 
love.  Thus  by  religion  morality  is  lifted  into  the  service  of  God ; 
it  is  made  of  absolute  and  universal  obligation  ;  it  is  brought  into 
unity  under  the  all-comprehending  law  of  love  ;  it  is  lifted  above 
“  the  categoric  imperative,”  vitalized  and  made  spontaneous  by 
love  ;  it  is  inspired  and  made  strong  in  service  by  God’s  gracious¬ 
ness  to  man  and  man’s  faith  in  God.  Thus  man  rises  above  the 
life  of  morality  into  the  spiritual  life  of  fellowship  with  God, 
transfiguring  the  morality  by  faith  and  love  into  a  divine  service, 
and  transfiguring  the  man  into  the  moral  likeness  of  God,  who  is 
love. 

When  morality  lacks  the  consciousness  of  a  divinity,  not  only 
is  it  not  religion,  it  is  not  even  morality  in  its  true  development ; 
it  is  not  obedience  to  the  command  of  conscience  in  its  true  sig¬ 
nificance  ;  it  is  but  the  dry,  hard  rock  awaiting  the  divine  touch 
which  shall  make  it  flow  with  the  water  of  life.  Morality  with¬ 
out  religion  ignores  man’s  real  condition  as  a  creature  dependent 
on  God,  and  the  life  of  faith  in  him  which  it  requires.  It  leaves 
man  with  nothing  above  himself  on  which  he  can  lay  hold  to  lift 
himself  from  the  fleshly  and  natural  to  the  spiritual  and  divine. 
It  implies  no  need  of  such  divine  power,  but  leads  man  directly 

1  Literature  and  Dogma,  chap.  i.  pp.  30,  21. 

2  Religion  innerhalb  der  Grenzen  der  blossen  Vernunft,  iv.  1. 

O 


24 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


to  a  life  of  self-sufficiency.  Man  recognizes  his  own  autonomy 
and  finds  the  law  which  he  obeys  to  be  no  higher  than  himself ; 
thus  it  takes  from  duty  all  absolute  obligation  and  all  universal 
application.  Knowing  no  moral  system  under  the  law  and  gov¬ 
ernment  of  God,  morality  has  no  philosophical  basis  for  the  law 
of  love,  nor  for  the  worth  of  man,  the  sacredness  of  his  rights 
and  the  equality  of  men  in  their  relations  to  God,  the  common 
Father  and  Lord  of  all,  nor  for  the  unity  of  the  spiritual  life  as 
in  all  its  aspects  and  actions  the  manifestation  of  faith  and  love. 
It  is  not  lifted  above  the  sense  of  duty  and  the  imperative  com¬ 
mand  of  the  law  to  the  unity,  the  spontaneity,  the  enthusiasm  of 
the  life  of  love  ;  it  is  rather  a  piecemeal  and  perfunctory  doing 
of  many  duties,  a  living  by  rules.  As  such  it  is  but  a  defective 
apprehension  of  the  significance  of  the  moral  law,  and  a  partial 
and  incomplete  obedience  to  its  requirements.  With  some  sim¬ 
ilar  conception  of  morality  as  grounded  in  self-sufficiency,  and  as 
not  competent  to  realize  the  inspiration,  depth  and  fulness  of  the 
spiritual  life,  Wordsworth  wrote  in  A  Poet’s  Epitaph:  — 

“  A  moralist  perchance  appears, 

Led,  Heaven  knows  how,  to  this  poor  sod; 

And  he  has  neither  eyes  nor  ears, 

Himself  his  world  and  his  own  God ; 

“  One  to  whose  smooth-rubbed  soul  can  clinst 
Nor  form  nor  feeling,  great  nor  small ; 

A  reasoning,  self-sufficient  thing, 

An  intellectual  All  in  All.” 

Considering,  therefore,  both  the  distinctness  of  religion  and 
morality,  and  their  necessary  union  and  cooperation  in  realizing 
the  spiritual  life,  it  is  evident  that  morality  cannot  be  identified 
with  religion  nor  substituted  for  it ;  and  that  they  who  do  not 
believe  in  God  cannot  find  in  morality  an  object  for  religion 
which  may  be  a  substitute  for  God,  or  which  can  satisfy  man’s 
religious  consciousness  and  realize  his  right  spiritual  develop¬ 
ment. 

A  religion  which  has  not  yet  recognized  the  Divinity  as  a  moral 
law-giver  and  judge,  and  therefore  has  not  yet  penetrated  moral¬ 
ity  and  vitalized  it  into  spiritual  life,  remains  itself  a  germ  not 
yet  developed  in  its  normal  growth  ;  a  staminate  plant  which 
has  not  yet  found  the  pistillate  blossom  on  which  to  drop  its 
fertilizing  pollen,  although  it  is  growing  on  the  same  tree.  And 
morality,  if  not  quickened  by  religion  into  spiritual  life,  is  but  a 
pistillate  plant  susceptible  of  fertilization  and  awaiting  it  from 
above. 


RELIGION. 


25 


D.  F.  Strauss  suggests,  in  The  Old  Faith  and  the  New,  that 
we  may  still  have  a  religion  in  revering  the  Cosmos  itself,  a  sug¬ 
gestion  in  which  he  pathetically  utters  the  yearning  of  his  soul, 
bereaved  of  its  God  by  false  philosophy,  for  a  divine  object  of 
trust  and  worship.  But  the  Cosmos  cannot  satisfy  the  needs  of 
religion.  The  object  of  religious  faith  and  service  is  not  hu¬ 
manity  ;  it  is  the  mysterious  reality  behind  humanity,  on  which 
humanity  itself  depends.  It  is  not  the  Cosmos,  but  the  uncondi¬ 
tioned  reality  behind  the  Cosmos  on  which  the  Cosmos  itself  de¬ 
pends.  The  universe  does  not  pass  beyond  nor  rise  above  the 
finite.  Man  feels  his  dependence  on  it,  ground  under  material 
masses  and  blind  and  aimless  forces.  The  very  design  and  ne¬ 
cessity  of  religion  is  to  free  man  from  dependence  merely  and 
helplessly  on  unintelligent  necessity,  on  physical  and  resistless 
forces,  or  on  fate,  by  leading  him  to  see  his  dependence  on  abso¬ 
lute  and  perfect  Reason,  on  absolute  power  guided  by  wisdom  and 
love.  Schleiermacher’s  conception  of  religion  as  primarily  the 
sense  of  dependence  is  inadequate.  Religion  is  distinguished  not 
by  the  sense  of  dependence,  but  by  the  object  on  which  we  con¬ 
sciously  depend ;  by  the  sense  of  dependence  on  a  being  superhu¬ 
man  and  supernatural,  a  being  whose  power  transcends  and  con¬ 
trols  all  power,  on  the  absolute  Spirit  whose  intelligence  pierces 
and  illuminates  all  reality  and  all  possibility,  and  in  whom  wis¬ 
dom  and  love  guide  and  regulate  almighty  power.  We  find  the 
ultimate  ground  of  the  universe  in  the  absolute  Reason,  directing 
all  power  in  wisdom  and  love ;  and  the  right  religious  life  is  the 
life  of  conscious  dependence  on  this  God,  and  of  walling  trust  and 
service.  Nothing  is  rightly  called  religion  which  shows  no  trace 
of  the  soul’s  response  to  the  presence  of  the  absolute  Spirit. 

Mr.  J.  R.  Seeley,  in  Natural  Religion,  advances  the  opinion 
that  enthusiastic  devotion  to  the  study  of  a  science  is  a  religion, 
and  may  satisfy  the  constitutional  religiousness  of  man.  The 
same  may  be  said  of  enthusiastic  devotion  to  art  or  literature,  or 
to  the  abolition  of  slavery,  to  temperance,  or  any  other  philan¬ 
thropic  movement.  But  evidently  in  none  of  these  do  we  find 
any  distinctive  peculiarity  of  religion.  The  subordination  of  life 
to  a  ruling  idea,  thus  bringing  it  into  unity  and  quickening  en¬ 
thusiastic  self-devotion  to  an  object,  is  not  distinctive  of  religion ; 
for  a  man  may  be  thus  controlled  by  the  greed  of  gain  ;  he  may 
thus  devote  himself  enthusiastically'  to  any  object,  good  or  bad. 
There  is  probably  no  propensity  natural  to  man  which  may  not 
become  his  master-passion,  flaming  up  and  enveloping  his  whole 


26 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


being.  It  is  not  enthusiastic  self-devotion  which  is  the  distinc¬ 
tive  peculiarity  of  religion,  but  it  is  the  fact  that  the  object  of 
the  devotion  is  a  divinity,  a  being  at  once  superhuman  and  super¬ 
natural.  With  him,  though  beyond  the  finite,  man  comes  into 
communication  because  he  himself  in  his  own  rational  and  free 
personality  participates  in  the  supernatural ;  and  to  him  man’s 
thought  and  heart  go  out  as  the  supreme  object  of  trust  and  ser¬ 
vice.  If  there  is  no  divinity  there  is  no  religion.  Then  man’s 
constitutional  susceptibility  to  religion  is  without  a  real  object  ; 
his  religiousness  is  a  miserable  illusion,  a  falsity  in  the  very  con¬ 
stitution  of  his  being. 

When  agnostics,  positivists  and  materialists  affirm  the  reality 
of  religion,  they  are  using  the  word  excluding  its  distinctive 
meaning ;  they  are  sheltering  their  systems  under  the  shadow  of 
a  great  and  venerable  name  after  stripping  the  name  of  all  that 
makes  it  great  and  venerable.  Herein  they  give  their  testimony 
that  religion  has  its  roots  in  the  constitution  of  man  and  is  indis¬ 
pensable  to  his  wellbeing ;  at  the  same  time  they  reveal  the  in¬ 
sufficiency  of  their  systems  either  to  take  up  and  express  the  fun¬ 
damental  facts  or  to  realize  the  highest  ends  of  humanity. 

In  ancient  times,  in  the  childhood  and  ignorance  of  the  race, 
man  was  reaching  out  to  the  supernatural,  “  stretching  out  his 
hands  unto  God  ;  ”  religions  were  growing  and  myths  forming. 
He  worshiped  the  great  powers  of  nature,  the  great  heroes  who 
had  once  lived  on  earth,  as  seeing  in  and  through  them  the  su¬ 
pernatural  and  superhuman  that  he  sought  —  transitory  repre¬ 
sentations  of  the  divinity,  to  give  place,  with  advancing  culture, 
to  the  God  more  clearly  and  truly  known.  But  here  in  these 
modern  times  come  artificers  of  religions  who  call  on  us  to  go 
back  from  the  light  and  maturity  of  our  civilization,  and  worship 
these  abandoned  divinities  of  ancient  times,  this  rubbish  of  de¬ 
cayed  religions.  They  call  on  us  to  worship  them,  not  as  sup¬ 
posed  divinities,  but  in  the  full  knowledge  that  they  are  no  gods: 
not  yearning  for  clearer  knowledge  of  the  supernatural,  with 
hands  stretched  out  unto  God,  but  in  the  full  conviction  that 
there  is  no  divinity,  and  for  the  express  purpose  of  proving  that 
man’s  religiousness  may  be  satisfied  without  a  God,  and  so  of 
giving  consistency  to  speculative  unbelief.  And  for  this,  man  in 
his  highest  enlightenment  is  expected  to  be  satisfied  to  worship 
humanity,  or  the  material  universe,  or  even  his  own  science  and 
art.  In  the  burning  midsummer  brightness  of  modern  civilization, 
these  seeds  from  the  mummies  of  ancient  religions  will  not  take 


RELIGION. 


27 

root  and  grow.  And  if  they  should,  they  could  not  satisfy  the 
needs  of  religion  now.  But  in  fact  these  religions  are  manufac¬ 
tured  to  order,  and  are  not,  like  the  ancient  religions,  spontaneous 
and  luxuriant  growths.  Theism  is  now  the  living  religion  into 
which,  among  us,  the  religions  of  the  past  have  grown.  Nothing 
in  our  civilization  can  satisfy  the  religious  needs  of  men  but  the 
consciousness  of  relation  to  the  absolute  Spirit,  the  supreme  and 
universal  Reason,  in  whom  wisdom  and  love  are  perfect  and 
eternal,  from  whom  all  power  issues,  and  by  whom  it  is  directed, 
in  accordance  with  rational  principles  and  laws,  to  the  progres¬ 
sive  realization  of  rational  ideals  and  ends. 

7.  Religion  is  manifested  in  the  action  of  all  man’s  spiritual 
powers.  The  much  debated  question  whether  religion  belongs 
to  the  intellect,  the  feelings  or  the  will,  is  set  aside  by  the  fact 
that  it  manifests  itself  in  them  all.1  Religion  manifests  itself  in 
the  intellect  in  spontaneous  beliefs  ;  in  the  feelings  in  religious 
motives  and  emotions;  and  in  the  will  in  voluntary  acts  designed 
to  be  acceptable  to  the  divinity. 

If  a  person  believes  in  the  existence  of  a  divinity,  but  hates 
him,  and  refuses  all  homage,  worship  and  obedience,  he  cannot 
be  said  to  be  religious  ;  he  reveals  the  capacity  for  religion,  but 
certainly  not  religion.  If  a  person  believes  in  God  while  the  be¬ 
lief  is  inoperative  and  he  remains  indifferent  to  him  and  renders 
him  no  service,  he  cannot  be  properly  said  to  have  a  religion. 
Religion  includes  belief,  feeling  and  voluntary  service. 

The  services,  however  widely  different,  agree  as  service  to  a 
divinity,  supposed  to  be  acceptable  to  him  and  designed  to  se¬ 
cure  his  favor.  This  characterizes  the  rudest  offering  of  food, 
drink  and  sweet  odors,  which  the  divinity  is  supposed  in  some 
invisible  way  to  partake  of  and  enjoy ;  it  characterizes  propi¬ 
tiatory  sacrifices,  penance  and  self-torment,  and  all  religious 
services  up  to  the  Christian’s  secret  communion  with  God  in 
prayer,  and  his  life  of  fidelity  to  duty  and  of  self-sacrificing  love. 
u  An  old  Samoyede  woman,  who  was  asked  by  Castren  whether 
she  ever  said  her  prayers,  replied  :  Every  morning  I  step  out 
of  my  tent  and  bow  before  the  sun  and  say,  When  thou  risesR 
I  too  rise  from  my  bed.  And  every  evening  I  say,  When  thou 

1  For  an  account  and  criticism  of  this  discussion  in  Germany,  see  Voigt’s 
Fundamental  Dogmatik,  pp.  55-76.  In  connection  with  it  is  a  very  full  dis¬ 
cussion  of  the  different  proposed  etymologies  of  the  Latin  word  religio.  But 
if  the  true  etymology  were  ascertained,  it  would  be  of  little  account  in  ex¬ 
plaining  what  religion  is. 


28 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


sinkest  down,  I  too  sink  down  to  rest.  Thai,  was  her  prayer, 
perhaps  the  whole  of  her  religious  service.  A  poor  prayer  it 
may  seem  to  us,  but  not  to  her;  for  it  made  that  old  woman 
look  twice,  at  least,  each  day  away  from  earth  and  up  to  heaven  ; 
it  implied  that  her  life  was  bound  up  in  a  larger  and  a  higher 
life ;  it  encircled  the  daily  routine  of  her  earthly  existence  with 
something  of  a  divine  halo.  She  herself  was  evidently  proud 
of  it,  for  she  added,  with  a  touch  of  self-righteousness,  There 
are  wild  people  who  do  not  say  their  morning  and  evening 
prayers.” 1  Tertullian  alludes  in  a  most  touching  manner  to 
the  offering  of  children  to  Saturn :  “  When,  indeed,  their  own 
parents  offered  of  themselves,  and  willingly  paid  their  vow,  and 
fondled  the  infants  lest  they  should  be  slain  weeping.”  2  Yet  if 
the  parents  had  been  asked  why  they  did  this  they  might  have 
answered,  “We  ought  to  give  our  most  precious  things  to  the 
gods  ;  ”  a  principle  which  the  religion  of  universal  love  recog¬ 
nizes,  while  inspiring  horror  at  the  misapprehension  and  misap¬ 
plication  of  it. 

The  voluntary  rendering  of  service  implies  religious  belief 
and  feeling.  In  these  also,  under  all  differences,  a  real  agree¬ 
ment  may  be  traced.  Fetichism,  which  is  animism,  finds  mind 
or  the  supernatural  in  everything.  Polytheism  recognizes  the 
divine  in  everything  by  multiplying  its  gods,  till  every  subdi¬ 
vision  and  ramification  of  physical  processes,  of  organic  growth, 
of  the  personal,  domestic,  social  and  political  life  of  man,  and 
of  moral  feeling,  action  and  character  is  supposed  to  be  superin¬ 
tended  by  its  peculiar  divinity.  In  monotheism,  in  which  all 
limitations  of  time  and  space  drop  off  from  the  Deity,  God  is 
again  found  pervading  the  universe  by  his  energy  and  revealing 
himself  in  all  the  forms  and  processes  of  nature  and  in  the  life 
and  history  of  man.  Dr.  Dorner  remarks  that  the  oriental  relig¬ 
ions  set  out  from  the  divine,  and  attempt  to  bring  God  down 
to  the  human,  issuing  often  in  Pantheism;  but  the  western  relig¬ 
ions  set  out  from  the  finite  and  attempt  to  lift  man  up  to  God, 
issuing  in  the  deification  of  heroes.  “  But  both  seek  the  same 
end,  the  unity  of  the  divine  and  the  human.”  “  In  the  broader 
sense,  the  whole  history  of  ancient  religion  in  general  may  be 
called  a  prophecy  of  the  consummation  of  religion,  that  is,  of 
the  unity  of  God  and  the  man.”  3 

1  F.  Max  Muller,  Science  of  Religion,  Lecture  III. 

2  Apology,  £  9  ;  Oxford  Trans.,  vol.  i.  p.  21. 

3  Doctrine  of  the  Person  of  Christ,  vol.  i.  Introduction.  Christl.  GlaubensU 
vol.  i.  pp*  697,  698,  705. 


RELIGION. 


29 


8.  The  ethnic  religions,  as  historically  known  to  us,  are  often 
in  a  state  of  degeneracy  in  which  their  original  spiritual  elements 
are  partially  obscured.  The  earlier  Vedas  disclose  a  religion  su¬ 
perior  in  its  ideas  of  God  and  his  service  to  the  later  religions  of 
India.  The  same  is  true  of  the  earlier  Zoroastrian  religion  of 
Persia.  In  China  are  ceremonies  which  seem  to  be  survivals  of 
ancient  beliefs  and  services  more  distinctively  religious  than  Con¬ 
fucius  inculcates ;  these  indicate  an  ancient  religion  superior  to 
any  now  prevalent  among  that  people.  Even  in  savage  tribes  it 
is  not  uncommon  to  find  traditions  of  a  divinity  and  religious  ser- 
vices  that  have  passed  away  ;  the  divinity  is  sometimes  said  to 
be  dead.1  And  these  traditions  disclose  a  religion  superior  to 
that  of  recent  times.  In  the  time  of  the  Roman  emperors  the 
purer  and  healthier  religion,  which  was  so  powerful  in  the  Re¬ 
public,  had  degenerated.  Of  the  results  of  this  degeneracy  Paul 
presents  an  appalling  picture  in  the  beginning  of  his  Epistle  to 
the  Romans.  The  people,  in  the  never-dying  consciousness  of 
religious  needs,  were  already  seeking  other  religions,  especially 
the  religions  of  the  East,  which  offered  a  mediating  priesthood 
and  propitiation  for  sin.2  Christianity,  with  Paul,  accounts  for 
this  degeneracy  as  a  consequence  of  man’s  sin,  wilfully  turning 
away  from  the  purer  knowledge  and  service  of  God :  “  Even  as 
they  refused  to  have  God  in  their  knowledge.”  But,  however 
explained,  it  is  a  fact  which  must  be  taken  into  account  in  esti¬ 
mating  the  historical  evidence  of  man’s  constitutional  religious¬ 
ness,  and  of  its  essential  unity  as  the  response  of  the  human  spirit 
to  the  presence  of  the  superhuman  and  the  supernatural,  in  its 
progressive  development  to  the  knowledge  and  service  of  the  true 
God.  And  analogous  appearances  of  degeneration  are  facts  which 
must  be  taken  into  account  in  any  theory  of  the  evolution  of  or¬ 
ganic  life. 

1  F.  Max  Muller,  Origin  and  Growth  of  Religion,  pp.  15,  16. 

2  See  Ulilhorn’s  Conflict  of  Heathenism  and  Christianity,  Dr.  Smyth’s 
Trans.,  bk.  i.  chap.  ii. 


CHAPTER  II. 


GOD  KNOWN  IN  EXPERIENCE  OR  CONSCIOUSNESS. 

God  is  known  in  experience  or  consciousness. 

I.  Some  preliminary  explanations  are  necessary  to  clear  the 
meaning  of  this  proposition. 

We  are  said  to  know  in  experience  whatever  is  known  in  pre- 
sentative  intuition  ;  it  may  be  either  the  mind  itself  in  its  sev¬ 
eral  acts  and  states  or  some  reality  which  is  not  self.  What¬ 
ever  reality  has  come  under  our  immediate  observation  is  said 
to  be  known  in  experience.  In  other  words,  we  know  in  ex¬ 
perience  whatever  is  or  has  been  presented  in  consciousness. 
What  is  known  in  experience  may  be  also  said  to  be  known  in 
consciousness. 

Consciousness  as  thus  used  includes  the  primitive  or  intuitive 
knowledge  both  of  the  subject  and  the  object. 

Consciousness  as  used  in  the  earlier  Scotch  philosophy,  and 
commonly  in  Great  Britain  and  America,  means  the  mind’s  im¬ 
mediate  knowledge  of  its  own  mental  states  and  acts,  or  at  most, 
the  mind’s  knowledge  of  itself  in  those  states  and  acts.  In  this 
narrower  meaning  of  the  word  it  is  not  correct  to  say  that  we 
are  conscious  of  God,  or  that  he  is  present  to  our  consciousness. 

In  German  philosophy  consciousness  is  used  in  a  broader 
sense  to  denote  the  intuitive,  undiscriminated  knowledge  of  both 
object  and  subject,  the  immediate  knowledge  in  one  and  the 
same  act  of  the  object  known  and  the  subject  knowing.  Hamil¬ 
ton  introduced  this  usage  into  Great  Britain,  maintaining,  to  use 
his  own  example,  that  a  man  may  be  conscious  of  his  ink-stand. 
In  popular  language  consciousness  is  used  with  this  broadei 
meaning.  We  speak  of  a  person  absorbed  in  thought  as  being 
unconscious  of  all  which  is  going  on  around  him  ;  of  a  person 
fainting  or  rescued  from  drowning  as  having  lost  all  conscious¬ 
ness.  The  literary  usage  is  the  same.  So  Tennyson  uses  it :  — 

“  Slowly  and  conscious  of  the  raging  eye 
Tha.  ,  watched  him  .  ,  .  went  Leolin  :  ' 


GOD  KNOWN  IN  EXPERIENCE  OR  CONSCIOUSNESS. 


31 


and  so  Dryden  :  — 

“  ASneas  only,  conscious  to  the  sign, 

Presaged  the  event.” 

O 

i 

This  commends  itself  to  the  reason  as  the  usage  which  gives 
exactly  the  true  rendering  of  the  facts.  Every  act  of  knowledge 
is  knowledge  of  an  object  known,  a  subject  knowing,  and  the 
knowledge.  There  are  not  here  three  acts  of  knowing,  but  only 
one.  In  knowing  any  object,  as  in  perceiving  a  tree,  the  mind 
with  its  knowledge  is  revealed  to  itself  as  really  as  the  object  is 
revealed  to  the  mind.  The  mind’s  knowledge  of  the  object 
known  and  of  itself  knowing  are  equally  real  and  certain  as 
knowledge  ;  they  are  indissolubly  united  in  one  and  the  same 
mental  act;  if  the  knowledge  of  the  object  is  unreal  the  mind’s 
knowledge  of  itself  is  annulled,  and  if  the  mind’s  knowledge  of 
itself  and  of  its  knowledge  is  unreal  the  knowledge  of  the  ob¬ 
ject  is  annulled.  We  give  the  correct  rendering  of  this  fact 
when  we  give  to  this  complex  act  one  name  which  designates 
it  in  both  aspects.  And  consciousness  is  the  appropriate  name, 
because  whether  applied  to  the  knowledge  of  the  object  or  of 
the  subject,  the  name  itself,  consciousness,  denotes  that  it  is 
knowledge  of  one  with  the  other.  Hence  we  describe  the  fact 
correctly  when  we  say  that  the  object  is  presented  or  revealed 
to  the  mind  in  consciousness,  and  that  the  mind  is  conscious  of 
the  object ;  or,  that  in  the  perception  of  the  object  the  mind  be¬ 
comes  conscious  of  itself  and  its  knowledge.  Of  late,  philos¬ 
ophy  both  in  Great  Britain  and  America  is  coming  to  the  use  of 
the  word  in  its  wider  meaning,  as  “  the  light  of  all  our  seeing.” 

It  must  be  noticed,  however,  that  consciousness  as  thus  defined 
is  the  implicit,  undiscriminated  consciousness.  The  matter  given 
in  it  is  nebulous  and  undefined.  Intelligence,  choice  and  feel¬ 
ing  are  present  but  as  yet  undistinguished.  Knowledge  is  not 
yet  out  of  the  swaddling-clothes  of  feeling  and  able  to  stand 
alone  on  its  own  feet.  In  the  reaction  of  the  thinking  mind  on 
the  nebulous  contents  of  consciousness,  knowledge,  feeling  and 
determination  are  distinguished  ;  and  knowledge  itself  is  discrim¬ 
inated  as  consciousness  of  an  object  and  self-consciousness.  A 
reason  for  using  the  word  in  this  broader  sense  is  that  it  denotes 
primitive  knowledge  in  this  undiscriminated  state,  which  no 
other  word  so  appropriately  denotes. 

In  the  proposition  that  man  is  conscious  of  God  or  that  God 
presents  himself  in  man’s  consciousness,  the  word  is  used  in 


32 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


its  broader  meaning.  This  explanation  removes  all  objections 
founded  on  its  more  restricted  meaning.  God  does  not  present 
himself  to  the  distinctive  self-consciousness  as  a  being  identical 
with  the  human  spirit;  but  he  presents  himself,  as  a  being  dis¬ 
tinct  from  the  man,  to  the  primitive  consciousness  in  its  broader 
meaning.  Yet  the  fact  that  God  thus  presents  himself  shows 
that,  though  not  identical  with  man,  he  is  like  him,  in  affinity 
with  him  and  capable  of  communication  with  him.  As  material 
things,  to  which  man  in  his  body  is  like,  can  act  on  him  through 
the  sensorium  by  which  he  is  in  communication  with  nature,  and 
present  themselves  in  his  primitive  consciousness,  as  these  things 
being  expressions  of  the  divine  thought  can  be  translated  into 
thought  again,  so  God,  to  whom  man  as  spirit  is  like,  may  act  on 
him  as  spirit,  and  so  present  himself  in  man’s  consciousness  and 
be  apprehended  in  thought. 

The  proposition  as  thus  explained  implies  that  God  acts  in 
some  way  on  the  human  spirit,  so  that  it  may  be  conscious  of  his 
presence  and  action.  It  implies  that  as  man,  being  as  to  his 
body  included  in  nature,  is  surrounded  by  a  physical  environment 
which  is  constantly  acting  on  him  and  presenting  itself  in  his 
consciousness,  so  man  as  spirit  is  surrounded  by  a  spiritual  en¬ 
vironment  which  is  constantly  acting  on  him  and  presenting  it¬ 
self  in  his  consciousness.  That  environment  is  God,  in  whom 
we  live  and  move  and  have  our  being,  and  the  moral  system  of 
spiritual  beings,  who  depend  on  his  power  and  are  subjects  of  his 
law  and  of  his  love.  Hence  our  proposition  implies  the  truth 
of  the  saying  of  Kant,  which  has  sometimes  been  thought  ex¬ 
travagant,  that  “we  are  conscious  of  forming  a  part  of  the  intel¬ 
ligible  world.” 

It  is  not  pretended,  however,  that  God  presents  himself  in  con¬ 
sciousness  in  the  fully  rounded  and  complete  idea  of  him.  No 
object  is  so  presented.  Consciousness  may  be  distinguished  as 
implicit,  as  it  lies  unapprehended  and  undefined  in  thought  ;  and 
explicit,  after  its  contents  have  been  thus  apprehended  and  de¬ 
fined.  In  the  primitive  or  implicit  consciousness,  the  objects 
presented  incite  and  actuate  the  man  while  he  has  not  clearly 
apprehended  them  nor  his  own  mental  state  as  affected  by  them  ; 
in  the  explicit,  the  contents  are  the  same,  but  they  now  lie  clear 
and  definite  before  the  mind.  In  the  primitive  consciousness  is 
presented  all  the  reality  which  at  any  moment  is  matter  or  con¬ 
tents  of  immediate  knowledge  ;  the  mind  reacting  on  it  appre¬ 
hends,  distinguishes  and  defines  the  several  objects  included  in 


GOD  KNOWN  IN  EXPERIENCE  OR  CONSCIOUSNESS.  33 

this  presented  reality  and  notes  the  relations  by  which  they  are 
in  unity  with  one  another.  This  is  true  even  of  man’s  knowl¬ 
edge  of  himself.  It  is  only  as  the  mind  reacts  on  the  contents 
of  the  consciousness  that  the  man  comes  to  know  himself  in 
his  individuality  and  identity,  to  bring  himself  fully  into  the 
light  of  his  intelligence,  and  to  know  himself  in  his  rationality 
and  freedom,  in  his  personality,  in  all  the  attributes  of  his  many- 
sided  being. 

The  same  is  true  of  man’s  consciousness  of  God.  Man’s  spirit¬ 
ual  environment  presents  itself  in  his  primitive  consciousness  as 
nebulous  and  undiscriminated  matter.  It  is  only  by  the  reaction 
of  the  mind  upon  it  in  perception  and  thought  that  the  reality 
thus  presented  is  traced  out  and  united  in  the  full  idea.  If  God 
is  known  in  consciousness,  it  is  only  in  this  way  that  the  idea  of 
him  is  traced  out  and  brought  into  the  full  light  of  intelligence. 
This  consciousness  of  God,  or,  as  we  otherwise  call  it,  this  knowl¬ 
edge  of  God  in  experience,  is  what  is  meant  by  the  religious  con¬ 
sciousness. 

If  the  word  consciousness  is  used  in  this  larger  sense  we  shall 
have  the  consciousness  of  self  and  of  reality  which  is  not  self ; 
subject-consciousness  and  object-consciousness.  And  the  object 
must  be  man’s  environment,  physical  and  spiritual,  as  it  acts  on 
him  and  so  presents  itself  in  consciousness.  Man  in  his  connec¬ 
tion  with  the  physical  world  is  endowed  with  a  sensorium  through 
which  it  can  act  on  him  and  present  itself  in  his  consciousness. 
So  in  his  connection  with  the  spiritual  system  he  is  endowed  with 
rational  and  spiritual  susceptibilities  through  which  his  fellow- 
men  may  act  on  him,  and  reveal  themselves  in  his  consciousness 
in  their  rational,  free  personality  ;  and  God  may  act  on  him 
and  reveal  himself  in  his  consciousness. 

Whether  we  use  the  phrase  “  religious  consciousness  ”  or  “  God- 
consciousness  ”  or  not,  is  a  question  as  to  the  use  of  words.  The 
real  and  momentous  question  at  issue  is,  whether  or  not  we  know 
God  in  experience  ;  whether  or  not  we  have  any  immediate  con¬ 
sciousness  of  God. 

A  recent  writer  has  said  that  the  phrase  “  Christian  conscious¬ 
ness  ”  “  has  served  for  more  than  seventy-five  years  as  the  rally¬ 
ing  cry  of  a  definite  method  of  theological  inquiry,  whose  claims 
of  superior  merit  cannot  be  conceded,  and  many  of  whose  fruits 
are  not  encouraging  to  Christian  faith.”  If  the  word  is  used  in 
its  restricted  meaning  as  the  mind’s  consciousness  of  its  own  men¬ 
tal  states  and  acts,  then  the  affirmation  that  outward  objects  are 

3 


34 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


known  in  consciousness  would  imply  that  man  knows  only  his 
own  mental  states  and  acts,  and  would  give  phenomenalism  or  sub¬ 
jective  idealism  as  the  only  true  theory  of  knowledge.  The  same 
would  be  true  if  we  affirm  that  God  is  known  in  consciousness 
in  this  restricted  meaning.  God  would  then  be  known  merely 
as  a  subjective  state  of  our  own  consciousness  without  objective 
reality.  The  phrase  has  also  been  used  with  a  pantheistic  mean¬ 
ing.  Pantheism  teaches  that  God  first  comes  to  consciousness  in 
man.  If  so,  man’s  consciousness  of  himself  would  be  conscious¬ 
ness  of  God  ;  for  it  would  be  God’s  consciousness  of  himself. 
Man  would  be  identified  with  God.  But  no  such  errors  are  hid¬ 
den  in  the  phrase  u  consciousness  of  God,”  when  consciousness 
is  used  in  its  broader  application  as  I  have  explained  it.  For 
this  implies  the  action  of  God  on  us,  revealing  himself  in  our 
consciousness  in  his  objective  reality,  just  as  we  are  conscious  of 
outward  objects  revealing  themselves  in  consciousness  by  their 
action  on  us.  Then  to  say  that  man  is  conscious  of  God  is  only 
another  way  of  saying  that  man  knows  God  immediately  in  ex¬ 
perience.  Then  the  only  objection  to  using  the  expression  would 
be  the  danger  of  confounding  it  with  idealistic  and  pantheistic 
meanings  which  have  been  attached  to  it.  It  is  not  worth  while 
to  contend  about  a  word  ;  but  my  opinion  is  that  the  intelligent 
use  of  the  word  in  its  broader  application  would  be  advantageous 
in  our  philosophy  and  our  theology. 

The  phrases  “  religious  consciousness  ”  and  “  Christian  con¬ 
sciousness,”  as  thus  explained,  denote  only  the  participation  of 
the  individual  in  the  common  religious  experience  of  mankind  or 
the  common  experience  of  Christians.  The  Christian  of  to-day 
finds  in  his  own  religious  experience  a  response  to  the  experience 
of  Christians  of  former  ages.  The  Christian  Scriptures  are  the 
medium  of  this  union  ;  they  express  the  deepest  spiritual  life  of 
every  Christian  age.  The  fifty-first  and  the  twenty-third  Psalms, 
the  Lord’s  Prayer,  and  many  other  Scriptures,  ever  since  they 
were  written,  have  expressed  the  spiritual  experience  of  true 
worshipers  of  God  more  exactly  and  satisfactorily  than  any 
words  of  their  own  choosing.  They  are  “  the  golden  bowls  full 
of  incense  ”  which  from  age  to  age  have  borne  “  the  prayers  of 
the  saints  ”  before  the  throne  of  God.1  And  the  Christian  be¬ 
liever  tests  his  experience,  his  beliefs  and  his  interpretations  of 
Scripture  by  the  experience  and  thinking  of  all  Christian  people 
as  disclosed  in  the  hymns  and  liturgies,  the  confessions  and 
creeds,  the  devotional  and  doctrinal  literature,  the  biographies 

1  Rev.  v.  8. 


GOD  KNOWN  IN  EXPERIENCE  OR  CONSCIOUSNESS. 


35 


and  histories,  which  express  the  best  thought  and  wisdom,  the 
most  devout  worship,  the  truest  Christian  living  of  the  past.  He 
is  thus  able  to  test  and  broaden  his  own  beliefs  and  his  own  in¬ 
terpretations  of  Scripture  by  the  “  capitalized  experience  ”  of  all 
Christian  people.  He  is  not  to  study  God’s  revelation  of  him¬ 
self  isolated  in  his  own  individuality.  He  is  “  the  heir  of  all  the 
ages,’’  and  is  to  enrich  his  own  private  experience  and  judgment 
from  his  inheritance  in  the  accumulated  treasures  of  the  religious 
experience  and  judgment  of  mankind. 

Paul  recognizes  this  unity  of  Christian  consciousness  in  his 
prayer  for  the  Christians  of  Ephesus  :  “  That  ye,  being  rooted 
and  grounded  in  love,  may  be  strong  to  comprehend  with  all  the 
saints  what  is  the  breadth,  and  length,  and  height,  and  depth, 
and  to  know  the  love  of  God  which  passeth  knowledge.”  1 

It  is  said  that  in  his  own  personality  every  man  dwells  in  a 
solitude  into  which  no  other  can  penetrate.  Yet  his  constitution 
as  personal  is  common  to  him  with  all  rational  beings.  In  it  the 
common  and  universal  principles  of  reason  and  laws  of  thought 
are  regulative  ;  upon  it  presses  the  common  environment  of  the 
race  ;  into  it  penetrate  motives  and  emotions  common  to  all  man¬ 
kind.  He  finds  in  himself  lines  reaching  out  and  binding  him  in 
unity  with  his  fellow-men  in  every  utterance  of  speech,  in  every 
communication  of  thought,  in  all  literatures  and  civilizations. 
The  same  is  true  in  religion.  Influences  come  in  upon  man's 
spirit  from  the  spiritual  environment  which  encompasses  all  men, 
from  God  in  whom  we  live  and  move  and  have  our  being.  In 
knowing  God  the  spiritual  life  of  men  is  made  intelligible  to  us, 
and  we  are  brought  into  unity  with  them  as  spiritual  and  relig¬ 
ious  beings.  This  is  the  common  religious  consciousness.  The 
same  is  preeminently  true  of  the  Christian  religion,  in  which  man 
comes  into  the  most  intimate  and  joyous  communion  with  God 
and  attains  the  clearest  and  fullest  knowledge  of  him.  However 
isolated  a  Christian  may  be,  alone  with  God  in  secret  communion 
with  him,  yet  every  one  who  will,  is  admitted  to  the  same  inti¬ 
macy  ;  and  as  in  this  common  experience  of  his  graciousness 
they  come  nearer  to  God,  they  come  nearer  to  one  another.  Thus 
each  may  test,  correct  and  verify  the  beliefs  arising  in  his  own 
personal  Christian  experience  by  the  experience  of  all  the  Chris¬ 
tian  ages  ;  and  he  rejoices  in  the  fact  that  K  with  all  the  saints  ’ 
he  has  knowledge  of  God’s  surpassing  love.  This  is  the  common 
Christian  consciousness. 

And  when  a  Christian  teacher,  isolating  himself  from  “  all  the 

1  Eph.  iii.  17,  18. 


86 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


saints,”  mistakes  the  candle  which  he  has  lighted  in  the  cell  of 
his  own  individuality  for  the  light  of  the  world,  and  occupies 
himself  with  declaiming  against  the  narrowness,  the  bigotry,  the 
foolishness,  the  absurdities  which  he  thinks  he  finds  in  the  litur¬ 
gies,  the  confessions,  the  creeds  and  the  theologies  of  the  Chris¬ 
tian  ages,  we  seem  to  hear  the  voice  of  inspiration  speaking  to 
him  out  of  the  ancient  time  :  “  Art  thou  the  first  man  that  was 
born  ?  Wast  thou  made  before  the  hills  ?  ”  1 

II.  Since  we  have  the  idea  of  God,  at  least  the  elements  of  the 
idea  must  have  been  given  in  intuition  and  so  brought  within  the 
consciousness.  This  is  accordant  with  the  universal  law  that  the 
mind  cannot  apprehend  in  thought  what  has  never  been  known 
in  intuition  and  so  brought  within  the  consciousness.  It  is  plain 
therefore  at  the  outset  that  God  is  known  in  consciousness  at 
least  in  the  sense  that  all  the  components  of  the  idea  are  known 
in  intuition,  and  thus  brought  within  the  consciousness  ;  although 
the  idea  itself  may  have  been  originated  by  thought  combining 
elements  already  known.  The  earth  is  a  legitimate  object  of 
thought ;  but  it  is  only  the  various  components  of  the  idea  of  it 
which  are  known  in  intuition.  By  combining  these  in  thought 
the  idea  of  the  earth  is  attained.  When  a  stone  or  other  bodv 

« j 

is  lifted  we  are  conscious  of  resistance  to  our  effort ;  but  it  is  only 
by  thought  that  the  idea  of  the  force  of  gravity  is  attained.  In 
the  same  way  the  components  of  the  idea  of  God  may  have  been 
given  in  consciousness  while  the  idea  itself  may  be  formed  from 
them  in  thought. 

In  our  idea  of  God  there  are  two  factors,  designated  by  the 
two  words,  absolute  Spirit.  That  absolute  or  unconditioned  be¬ 
ing  exists  is  known  as  a  necessary  truth  in  rational  intuition. 
As  thus  known  this  truth  is  present  in  consciousness  like’ other 
necessary  truths  of  reason.  Being  is  known  in  the  consciousness 
of  self.  But  the  absoluteness  of  being,  considered  only  as  given 
a  priori ,  has  no  positive  contents  in  consciousness  ;  what  it  is 
can  be  defined  only  by  negations  ;  it  is  being  that  is  not  con¬ 
ditioned  in  dependence  and  not  limited  in  time,  space  or  quan¬ 
tity.  The  second  component  of  the  idea  is  spirit.  In  knowing 
ourselves  as  rational,  free  agents  we  know  the  personal,  the  su¬ 
pernatural  ;  we  thus  know  what  spirit  is.  Having  thus  knowl¬ 
edge  of  the  absolute  and  of  spirit  we  combine  the  two  in  our  idea 
of  God,  the  absolute  Spirit.  The  idea  is  legitimately  formed, 
for  the  components  of  it  are  known  in  intuition. 

1  Job  xv.  7. 


GOD  KNOWN  IN  EXPERIENCE  OR  CONSCIOUSNESS. 


87 


Having  now  this  idea  of  God  and  knowing  that  an  absolute 
Being  exists,  we  legitimately  inquire  whether  our  idea  of  him  as 
the  absolute  Spirit  is  correct.  It  is  on  occasion  of  our  knowl¬ 
edge  of  the  universe  that  the  necessary  belief  arises  that  an  ab¬ 
solute  Being  exists  as  the  ultimate  Being  or  Power  on  which  it 
depends  and  which  is  manifested  in  it.  We  reasonably  conclude 
that  in  the  absolute  Being  are  all  the  potencies  necessary  to  ac¬ 
count  for  the  universe  and  manifested  in  it.  Therefore  we  search 
the  universe  of  nature  and  of  man  to  see  if  we  can  find  evidence 
that  the  absolute  Being  is  God,  the  eternal  Spirit.  In  nature  we 
may  find  evidence  of  power  which  justifies  us  in  believing  him  to 
be  absolute  Power,  as  Spencer  describes  him.  In  man  and  the 
moral  and  spiritual  system,  we  may  find  evidence  that  he  is  God, 
the  eternal  Spirit.  And  in  nature  itself  we  may  find  what  can 
be  accounted  for  only  as  the  manifestation  of  Spirit.  Such  a 
proof  that  the  absolute  Being  is  the  absolute  Spirit,  the  per¬ 
sonal  God,  is  entirely  legitimate  according  to  the  laws  of  scientific 
thought.  And  if  the  evidence  is  found,  the  conclusion  is  valid. 
Although  the  naked  idea  of  absoluteness  considered  a  priori  re¬ 
mains  empty  of  positive  contents  and  can  be  defined  in  thought 
only  by  negation,  yet  because  according  to  a  fundamental  law  of 
thought  we  know  the  necessary  connection  of  the  universe  with 
absolute  Being  as  its  ultimate  ground,  we  may  find  positive  con¬ 
tents  for  the  idea  of  the  absolute  as  absolute  Spirit  by  examining 
what  the  universe  is  in  its  two  systems,  the  physical  and  the 
spiritual. 

We  can  now  answer  the  common  objection  that  the  existence 
of  God  cannot  be  proved  because  the  proof  must  presuppose  the 
idea.  This  objection  is  applied  in  two  ways. 

It  is  sometimes  urged  that  the  proof  is  illegitimate  because  it 
presupposes  the  idea.  But  this  is  necessary  also  in  all  scientific 
investigations.  If  we  ask  whether  God  exists,  we  must  know  al¬ 
ready  what  we  mean  by  God,  and  must  judge  whether  the  evi¬ 
dence  establishes  the  existence  of  a  being  corresponding  with  the 
idea.  Just  the  same  is  true  if  the  inquiry  is,  whether  the  force 
of  gravity,  or  a  planet  between  Mercury  and  the  sun,  or  any  other 
physical  power  or  agent  exists.  And  not  only  must  the  investi¬ 
gation  start  with  the  idea  of  the  object,  but  the  idea  must  be 
present  through  the  whole  investigation  to  direct  it,  and  to  make 
a  conclusion  possible.  In  seeking  the  unknown  cause  or  law  of 
known  effects  it  is  necessary  to  begin  with  creating  an  hypothe¬ 
sis  ;  that  is,  with  creating  an  idea  of  the  cause  or  law.  Then  the 


38 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


inquiry  is,  whether  the  real  existence  of  the  supposed  cause  or  law 
is  adequate  and  necessary  to  account  for  the  facts.  When,  with 
the  idea  of  God  already  in  his  mind,  the  theist  begins  to  in¬ 
quire  whether  there  is  evidence  that  God  exists,  he  simply  con¬ 
forms  to  a  law  by  which  all  scientific  search  for  the  unknown  is 
regulated.  Here  is  an  example  of  unfairness  sometimes  notice¬ 
able  in  the  reasoning  of  skeptics,  urging  as  an  objection  against 
theism  what  is  accepted  as  legitimate  and  valid  in  physical  sci¬ 
ence. 

In  another  application  of  the  objection  it  is  urged  that  there 
can  be  no  legitimate  proof  of  the  existence  of  God,  because  he  is 
not  known  in  intuition  and  thus  brought  within  our  conscious¬ 
ness.  The  answer  is  that  all  the  components  of  the  idea  are 
known  in  intuition,  and  the  mind  legitimately  combines  them 
in  reflective  thought ;  and  this  is  all  that  is  required  by  the  law 
that  there  is  nothing  in  thought  which  has  not  first  been  given 
in  intuition,  either  presentative  or  rational.  In  this  also  the 
theistic  argument  accords  with  the  methods  of  physical  science. 

From  the  position  now  attained  we  are  justified  in  affirming 
that  God  is  known  in  consciousness  in  the  sense  that  the  com¬ 
ponents  of  the  idea  are  thus  known,  and  are  in  thought  legiti¬ 
mately  combined  into  the  idea  of  God,  the  absolute  Spirit.  If 
now  it  can  be  proved  that  the  hypothesis  that  such  a  being 
exists  accounts  for  all  the  facts,  and  that  no  other  hypothesis 
does  adequately  account  for  them,  this  proof  of  the  existence 
of  God  is  entirely  legitimate  according  to  the  laws  of  scientific 
thought.1 

III.  The  consciousness  of  God  has  a  deeper  meaning  than  this. 
Man  knows  Grod  in  experience,  not  merely  elements  of  thought 
which  he  builds  up  into  an  idea  of  him.  Through  his  rational 
intuitions,  ideas  and  sentiments  and  his  spiritual  experience  lie 
knows  him. 

1.  This  is  reasonable  and  antecedently  probable.  If  God  is 
the  absolute  Reason  in  whom  the  universe  is  grounded,  by  whom 
it  is  ordered  and  pervaded,  if  he  is  immanent  in  it  and  in  him 
we  live  and  move  and  have  our  being,  if  he  is  Love  subordinat¬ 
ing  and  directing  all  things  to  the  highest  spiritual  ends,  then  it 
is  reasonable  to  believe  that  God  may  act  on  man,  may  throw 
rays  from  the  light  of  the  universal  reason  into  his  mind,  may 
quicken  his  spiritual  susceptibilities,  and  so  present  himself  in 
his  consciousness  and  be  known  in  experience. 

1  Phil.  Basis  of  Theism,  pp.  69,  72-81,  286. 


GOD  KNOWN  IN  EXPERIENCE  OR  CONSCIOUSNESS. 


39 


But  this  revelation  of  the  infinite  to  the  finite  mind,  this  rev¬ 
elation  of  God  within  the  limited  experience  and  consciousness 
of  man  must  be  progressive  and  at  every  point  of  time  incom¬ 
plete.  God  reveals  himself  to  man.  But  man’s  apprehension  of 
God  through  his  experience  of  the  divine  manifestation  must  be 
commensurate  with  his  own  imperfect  development  and  educa¬ 
tion,  and  can  advance  only  according  to  his  capacity  to  under¬ 
stand  it  and  his  faithfulness  in  receiving,  interpreting  and  obey¬ 
ing  it.  So  the  world  has  always  been  acting  on  man,  presenting 
itself  in  his  consciousness,  known  in  experience.  Yet  only  step 
by  step  through  all  generations  has  man  been  progressively  ap¬ 
prehending  what  the  world  thus  presented  in  his  consciousness 
is  ;  he  has  discovered  something  of  it  through  the  eye,  something 
through  the  ear  and  through  the  hand,  more  by  reflecting  and 
reasoning  on  it,  a  little  here  and  a  little  there,  something  to-day 
and  more  to-morrow.  Much  more  must  man’s  apprehension  of 
God,  as  evermore  he  is  presenting  himself  in  human  conscious¬ 
ness,  be  partial  and  progressive.  So  his  revelation  through  in¬ 
spired  prophets  must  needs  be  “  by  divers  portions  and  in  divers 
manners ;  ”  and  even  our  Lord  must  say  :  “  I  have  yet  many 
things  to  say  unto  you,  but  ye  cannot  bear  them  now.” 

Thus,  as  through  the  impressions  of  sense  we  perceive  our 
physical  environment,  so  through  rational  and  spiritual  princi¬ 
ples,  sentiments  and  susceptibilities  we  perceive  our  spiritual 
environment,  the  universal  and  all-illuminating  Reason,  the  abso¬ 
lute  Spirit,  and  the  system  of  personal  and  spiritual  beings  re¬ 
lated  to  him.  Man  is  conscious  of  God  in  a  manner  analogous 
to  that  in  which  he  is  conscious  of  the  outward  world. 

2.  A  knowledge  of  God  in  experience  is  implied  in  the  idea  of 
religion,  and  is  essential  to  its  reality.  The  consciousness  of  God 
is  involved  in  man’s  religious  consciousness.  Religion  essentially 
implies  the  presence  of  God  with  man,  God’s  action  and  influence 
on  him,  and  man’s  knowledge  of  God  through  experience  of  his 
action  and  influence. 

The  idea  of  God  constructed  by  combining  elements  of  thought 
known  in  experience  is  a  legitimate  basis  of  thought  and  argu¬ 
ment,  but  not  of  religion.  After  it  all,  God  remains  apart  from 
us  ;  he  does  not  come  into  communion  with  us,  does  not  reveal 
himself  to  us  by  direct  action  or  influence  ;  we  have  no  conscious 
experience  of  his  presence  with  us.  We  believe  that  he  exists  as 
Adams  and  Verrier  believed  that  the  planet  Neptune  existed  be¬ 
fore  it  was  discovered.  We  may  even  construct  a  system  of  the- 


40 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


ology,  like  the  blind  Sanderson  who  had  thorough  scientific 
knowledge  of  the  geometric  laws  of  light,  though  light  had  never 
revealed  itself  in  his  consciousness  and  he  had  never  known  in 
experience  light  or  color  or  visible  form.  But  all  this  is  not 
enough  to  make  religion  possible.  God  known  thus  and  not  oth¬ 
erwise  could  not  be  the  object  of  religious  trust  and  service.  .  Re¬ 
ligion  in  its  essence  implies  communication  with  God ;  it  implies 
the  action  of  God  on  us,  the  conscious  experience  of  his  influ¬ 
ence,  the  conscious  yielding  to  or  resisting  his  drawing,  con¬ 
scious  trust  and  service.  For  religion  he  is  essentially  the  God 
“  with  whom  we  have  to  do.” 

A  crude  illustration  is  man’s  knowledge  of  malarial  poison, 
through  his  conscious  experience  of  its  effects  within  him.  He 
does  not  see  it ;  he  cannot  lay  hold  of  it,  put  it  in  a  phial  and 
analyze  it.  But  he  knows  its  presence  and  power  by  its  effects 
which  he  miserably  feels  in  his  own  body  every  day.  The  poison 
acts  primarily  on  the  body,  and  it  is  in  this  that  its  presence, 
power  and  peculiar  action  are  experienced.  But  the  action  of 
the  Spirit  of  God  is  primarily  on  and  in  the  human  spirit.  His 
presence  and  influence  are  known  in  the  spiritual  experience,  in 
the  rousing  of  the  spiritual  powers  and  susceptibilities  to  action, 
in  the  quickening  of  spiritual  life,  in  the  transformation  of  spirit¬ 
ual  character,  in  the  growth  of  spiritual  power,  purity  and  bless¬ 
edness.  The  man  in  whose  spirit  God  thus  acts,  does  not  see 
him ;  God  does  not  stand  out  in  his  consciousness  in  definite 
form  ;  but  the  man  knows  his  presence,  his  power  and  the  nature 
of  his  influence  by  their  effects  which  he  experiences.  So  a  ma¬ 
terial  object,  a  tree  for  example,  acts  on  the  sensorium  and  causes 
sensations ;  through  these  sensations  the  mind  reacting  perceives 
the  object.  But  the  sensations  are  not  the  tree  nor  an  image  of 
the  tree ;  and  it  is  only  through  many  sensations  and  perceptions 
through  the  different  senses  that  the  tree  is  fully  known.  And 
yet  the  tree  is  continually  acting  on  the  sensorium,  and  produc¬ 
ing  effects  through  which  it  presents  itself  in  the  consciousness  of 
the  percipient.  God,  who  besets  us  behind  and  before  and  lays 
his  hand  upon  us,  acts  on  our  spiritual  susceptibilities  ;  in  con¬ 
tinual  spiritual  influences  producing  varied  spiritual  effects  he 
reveals  himself  in  our  consciousness  and  we  know  him. 

If  then  religion  is  not  a  delusion,  if  its  object  is  real,  if  its 
belief  and  service  are  demanded  by  reason,  then  we  have  real 
knowledge  of  God  in  the  conscious  experience  of  his  presence 
and  influence  in  the  soul. 


GOD  KNOWN  IN  EXPERIENCE  OR  CONSCIOUSNESS.  41 


3.  It  is  a  fact  that  all  religions  assume  a  knowledge  in  expe¬ 
rience  of  the  divinity  worshiped. 

Skeptics  are  wont  to  say  that  physical  science  and  all  real 
knowledge  rest  primarily  on  experience,  but  that  religious  belief 
rests  on  abstract  or  speculative  thought,  or  on  the  creations  of 
the  imagination.  The  whole  history  of  religions  shows  that 
according  to  the  common  consciousness  of  mankind  the  fact  is 
just  the  contrary.  Men  of  every  religion,  in  every  age,  have 
believed  that  their  knowledge  of  their  divinity  rests  on  expe¬ 
rience. 

The  teaching  of  Christianity,  that  men  know  God  by  experi¬ 
ence,  is  distinct  and  emphatic.  In  Christian  circles,  when  a  man 
turns  to  God  and  begins  the  new  and  spiritual  life,  it  is  common 
to  describe  the  change  by  saying  he  has  experienced  religion.  A 
man  who  in  mature  manhood  had  been  awakened  to  the  con¬ 
sciousness  of  God  and  of  the  unworthiness  of  his  previous  ungodly 
and  selfish  life,  and  who  was  beginning  to  feel  the  joy  and  inspi¬ 
ration  and  uplift  of  the  new  life  of  faith  and  love,  said  to  me  : 
“  It  must  be  the  Spirit  of  God  that  has  wrought  this  change ;  for 
there  was  nothing  in  me  that  could  have  wrought  it.”  The  dis¬ 
tinctive  significance  of  the  whole  practical  life  of  Christianity, 
rests  on  the  reality  of  the  Christian’s  conscious  experience  of  the 
presence  and  power  of  God.  In  like  manner  the  history  of  re¬ 
demption  through  Christ,  and  all  the  doctrine,  precept  and  prom¬ 
ise  of  the  gospel  assume  the  Christian’s  knowledge  of  God  in  ex¬ 
perience.  Christ  and  his  apostles  teach  that  man,  in  the  action 
of  his  own  moral  nature,  knows  God  and  his  law,  and  his  own 
sinfulness  against  God  ;  that  God  reveals  himself  in  the  courses 
of  human  history,  by  his  action  redeeming  men  from  sin ;  that 
God’s  Spirit  comes  to  men  with  gracious  and  heavenly  influences 
to  woo  and  win  them  from  sin  ;  that  the  Christian  life  begins  in 
the  man’s  being  born  anew  under  the  influences  of  the  Spirit  of 
God;  that  through  Christ  the  sinner  is  justified  by  faith  ;  that 
without  other  priest  or  mediator  he  comes  into  the  immediate 
presence  of  God,  and  there  alone  with  God,  face  to  face  with  the 
Holy  One  against  whom  he  has  sinned,  he  confesses  to  God  his 
sins  and  is  forgiven ;  that  thenceforward  he  enters  into  his  closet 
and  shuts  the  door,  and  prays  to  his  Father  who  is  in  secret,  and 
his  Father  who  sees  in  secret  rewards  him  openly  ;  and  that  thus 
his  whole  Christian  life  becomes  a  life  of  communion  with  God. 

Hence  the  preaching  of  the  gospel  is  primarily  testifying.  The 
apostles  testified  as  witnesses  of  the  historical  works  and  teach- 


42 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


ings  of  Jesus.  But  they  also  testified  of  what  they  had  them¬ 
selves  experienced  of  the  redeeming  and  renovating  grace  of  God. 
Paul  always  preached  in  the  spirit  of  his  own  declaration,  made 
while  in  a  Roman  dungeon  he  was  awaiting  his  bloody  death  : 
“  I  know  him  whom  I  have  believed.1’  And  in  all  ages  the 
preaching  of  Christ  by  Christians  has  been,  in  its  deepest  and 
most  vital  root,  their  testimony  as  to  what  they  have  experienced 
of  the  renovating  and  saving  grace  of  God.  Hence  the  preacher 
of  the  gospel  is  primarily  a  prophet ;  a  man  whose  heart  God  has 
touched,  and  whose  teaching  is  illuminated  and  vitalized  by  his 
experience  of  that  divine  touch.  In  this  sense  Christianity  al¬ 
ways  realizes  the  fulfilment  of  the  prophecy  quoted  by  Peter  on 
the  day  of  Pentecost :  “  I  will  pour  forth  my  Spirit  upon  all 
flesh  ;  and  your  sons  and  your  daughters  shall  prophesy.”  And 
hence,  with  strict  propriety,  they  who  have  testified  of  Christ 
and  sealed  their  testimony  with  their  blood,  are  by  preeminence 
called  martyrs,  that  is,  witnesses.  An  ancient  Israelite,  going  to 
the  temple  of  God  to  worship,  sang :  “  Come,  all  ye  that  fear 
God,  and  I  will  declare  what  he  has  done  for  my  soul.  Verily 
God  hath  heard  me ;  he  hath  attended  to  the  voice  of  my  prayer. 
Blessed  be  God  who  hath  not  turned  away  my  prayer,  nor  his 
mercy  from  me.”  In  like  manner  Christians  in  every  age  are 
witnesses  declaring  what  they  have  known  of  God  in  their  com¬ 
munion  with  him,  and  in  their  experience  of  his  grace,  awaken¬ 
ing  and  quickening  their  spiritual  powers  and  inspiring,  purify¬ 
ing  and  strengthening  them  in  the  life  of  faith  and  love. 

The  ethnic  or  pagan  religions  rest  on  the  assumption  that  man 
knows  God  in  experience.  In  the  lowest  animism  or  fetichism 
the  untutored  man  believes  that  he  experiences  good  or  evil  from 
the  invisible  power  residing  in  the  natural  object,  and  that  by 
his  own  action  toward  the  invisible  power  he  can  avert  the  evil 
and  win  the  good.  Lucretius  says  that  fear  generates  the  gods. 
But  the  fear  reveals  man’s  belief  that  the  gods  make  themselves 
known  by  their  action  on  him,  and  that  he  by  his  offerings  and 
worship  comes  into  personal  communication  with  them.  Pflei- 
derer,  on  the  contrary,  says  that  the  primitive  Aryans  in  the 
earliest  times  of  the  Vedic  religion  were  far  removed  from  slav¬ 
ish  fear,  and  were  inspired  with  childlike,  cheerful  and  joyous 
trust.  He  cites  in  proof  from  the  Vedic  poems  this  prayer,  ad¬ 
dressed  to  Varuna:  “As  hens  spread  their  sheltering  wings  to 
protect  their  brood  from  harm,  wilt  thou,  O  Lord,  thou  who  art 
so  great  and  good,  protect  us  from  the  evils  which  terrify  us.” 


GOD  KNOWN  IN  EXPERIENCE  OR  CONSCIOUSNESS. 


43 


He  also  cites  from  tlie  same  poems  lines  addressed  to  Indra  be¬ 
ginning  :  “  Thou,  Indra,  art  to  us  father,  mother ;  companion, 
thou,  and  friend  and  brother.”  1  But  this  cheerful  trust  in 
Varuna  and  Indra  implies  that  the  worshiper  believed  that  he 
knew  by  experience  his  dependence  on  their  benignity  and  that 
he  could  communicate  with  them  in  his  prayer. 

In  Greece  and  Rome  it  was  not  merely  the  priestess  at  the 
oracle  crying  “  Deus,  ecce  Dens,"  in  the  sense  of  the  presence  of 
the  divinity ;  but  the  belief  that  the  gods  revealed  themselves 
to  men,  and  that  men  knew  by  experience  their  presence  and 
their  power,  pervaded  and  controlled  the  common  mind.  Pro¬ 
fessor  Tiele  says:  u  Socrates  gained  his  belief  in  the  deity  by 
the  path  of  inward  experience,  and  he  heard  within  him  the 
voice  of  his  good  spirit,  which  was  with  him  no  figure  of  speech, 
but  an  intense  conviction.”  2  Xenophon  attached  great  impor¬ 
tance  to  prayer.  Plato  says  it  is  the  best  and  noblest  act  of  a 
virtuous  man  to  live  in  continual  intercourse  with  the  gods  by 
prayers  and  vows.  The  great  Greek  and  Roman  orators  often 
began  their  orations  with  prayer.  Cornelius  Scipio  never  un¬ 
dertook  any  affair  of  importance  without  having  passed  some 
time  alone  in  the  temple  of  Jupiter  Capitolinus.  All  public 
acts,  all  important  domestic  events,  and  all  the  great  festivals 
were  consecrated  with  religious  acts.  In  accordance  with  this, 
Seneca  says :  u  I  tell  you,  Lucilius,  a  sacred  spirit  sits  within 
us,  the  observer  and  overseer  of  our  good  and  evil.  As  he  is 
treated  by  us,  so  he  treats  us.  No  one  is  a  good  man  without 
God.”  3 

These  are  instances,  not  of  a  religion  of  fear,  but  of  trust  in 
the  benignity  of  the  divinity.  Other  examples  are  the  confi¬ 
dence  of  the  Romans  in  their  household  gods,  and  the  trust  of 
citizens  in  the  tutelary  god  of  their  city.  Hegel  sa}7s  :  “  There 
rules  among  the  heathen  the  consciousness  of  their  happiness 
that  God  is  near  them  as  the  god  of  the  people,  of  the  city  ;  the 
feeling  that  the  gods  are  friendly  to  them  and  give  them  the 
enjoyment  of  the  best.  In  this  way  Athena  was  known  by 
the  Athenians  as  their  divinity,  and  thus  they  knew  themselves 
as  originally  at  one  with  the  same,  and  the  divinity  herself  as 
the  spiritual  might  of  their  people.”  4  Philo  compares  God  in 

1  Religionsphilosophie,  p.  269. 

2  Tiele,  Outline  of  the  History  of  Religion,  Carpenter’s  Translation,  p.  227, 

8  Epist.  41. 

4  Hegel,  Philosophic  der  Religion,  vol-  i.  pp.  225,  226. 


44 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


creating  the  world  to  a  full  cup  foaming  over.  In  some  of  the 
oriental  religions  the  origin  of  the  world  is  referred  to  the  good¬ 
ness  of  God.  In  creating,  the  Deity  is  conceived  as  surrendering 
his  essence  to  the  world,  as  dividing  and  sacrificing  himself  and 
thus  producing  the  world.  Thus  they  represent  the  Divinity’s 
goodness  in  creating  as  carried  to  the  extent  of  self-sacrifice. 
These  facts  accord  with  Paul's  testimony  at  Lystra  that  among 
the  heathen  God  “  left  not  himself  without  witness.” 

4.  The  consciousness  of  God  is  involved  in  man’s  moral  con¬ 
sciousness.  He  is  conscious  of  moral  obligation.  In  this  he  is 
conscious  of  a  law  commanding  him ;  a  law  that  presents  itself 
as  imperative,  immutable,  universal.  Thus  he  finds  himself  in 
the  presence  of  the  absolute  Reason  in  which  the  universal 
truths,  which  are  independent  of  man  and  are  laws  to  his  thought 
and  action,  are  archetypal  and  eternal.  In  the  “  I  ought  ”  of 
the  conscience,  in  the  “  thou  shalt  ”  of  the  law,  he  hears  the 
voice  of  God.  If  in  reflective  thought  we  analyze  our  own  moral 
consciousness  we  find  in  it  the  consciousness  of  God,  giving  it  its 
significance,  vitality  and  power ;  and  in  the  normal  development 
of  the  moral  constitution  in  the  action  of  life,  we  come  to  recog¬ 
nize  God  in  it.  This  is  a  familiar  argument  in  Natural  Theol¬ 
ogy.  Even  Kant  affirms  that  the  idea  of  God,  necessary  to  the 
speculative  reason  as  an  idea,  finds  positive  contents  in  conscious¬ 
ness  in  the  moral  constitution  and  consciousness  of  man.  “  My 
belief  in  God  and  in  another  world  is  so  interwoven  with  my 

v 

moral  nature,  that  I  am  under  as  little  apprehension  of  having 
the  former  torn  from  me  as  of  losing  the  latter.”  1 

No  tribe  of  men  has  been  found  which  is  known  to  have  been 
without  consciousness  of  moral  distinctions,  and  none  known  to 
have  been  without  religious  consciousness.  But  savage  tribes 
have  been  found  in  respect  to  whom  there  is  no  evidence  that 
they  connect  the  two  ;  that  they  think  that  doing  right  is  the 
service  by  which  they  are  to  please  the  divinity,  or  that  the  divin¬ 
ity  is  a  moral  lawgiver  and  judge.  “  So  far  as  savage  religions 
can  stand  as  representing  natural  religion,  the  popular  idea  that 
the  moral  government  of  the  universe  is  an  essential  tenet  of 
natural  religion  simply  falls  to  the  ground.  Savage  animism  is 
almost  devoid  of  that  ethical  element,  which  to  the  educated 
modern  mind  is  the  very  mainspring  of  practical  religion.  Not, 
as  I  have  said,  that  morality  is  absent  from  the  life  of  the  lower 

1  Critique  of  Pure  Reason  ;  Transcendental  Doctrine  of  Method,  ,:hap.  tl 
sect.  iii. 


GOD  KNOWN  IN  EXPERIENCE  OR  CONSCIOUSNESS. 


45 


races.  Without  a  code  of  morals  the  very  existence  of  the  rudest 
tribe  would  be  impossible.  And  indeed  the  moral  standards  of 
even  savage  races  are  to  no  small  extent  well-defined  and  praise¬ 
worthy.  The  lower  animism  is  not  immoral,  it  is  non-moral.”  1 
Perhaps  further  knowledge  of  these  savage  tribes  would  have 
shown  that  they  also  recognized  a  connection  of  their  religion 
with  their  morality.  If  not,  the  fact  would  only  show  that  they 
were  not  yet  sufficiently  advanced  in  their  development  to  recog¬ 
nize  the  connection.  But  even  these  assume  that  they  have 
knowledge  of  their  divinity  in  experience  and  come  into  commu¬ 
nication  with  him  in  worship.  In  all  the  religions  of  the  world, 
with  this  exception,  men  have  not  only  believed  that  they  know 
their  divinity  in  experience,  but  have  recognized  their  moral 
responsibility  to  him.  They  form  some  conception  of  him  as  a 
moral  lawgiver  and  judge,  and  as  punishing  the  wicked.  They 
are  conscious  of  guilt,  they  fear  his  displeasure,  they  seek  to 
make  expiation  for  sin  and  to  propitiate  him.  Their  own  moral 
consciousness  becomes  a  consciousness  of  God. 

5.  Perhaps,  also,  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  God  presents 
himself  in  consciousness,  not  only  in  the  religious  and  moral  life, 
but  also  in  the  intellectual  activity  of  science.  The  consciousness 
of  God  is  involved  in  man’s  scientific  consciousness1. 

All  science  rests  on  the  assumption  that  the  universal  princi¬ 
ples  known  in  human  reason  and  regulating  human  thought  are 
true  throughout  all  space  and  time  ;  that  the  universe  is  intel¬ 
ligible  in  accordance  with  these  principles  ;  and  that  the  univer¬ 
sal  Reason  pervading  the  universe  and  revealed  in  it  is  the  same 
in  kind  with  the  human  reason.  These  are  immense  assump¬ 
tions  ;  but  all  science  rests  on  them,  and  if  they  are  false,  science 
is  impossible.  Thus  all  science  rests  on  the  existence  and  the 
recognition  of  the  universal  Reason.  The  truths  eternal  in  the 
absolute  and  universal  Reason  are  “  the  true  light  which  lightetli 
every  man.” 

The  scientist,  therefore,  in  his  explorations  and  discoveries, 
may  be  said  to  be  in  intellectual  communication  with  God.  He 
is  illuminated  with  the  light  of  the  eternal  Reason,  which  shines 
into  his  mind.  When  the  light  of  the  remotest  star  enters  the 
astronomer’s  eye  and  reveals  to  him  the  star,  the  light  of  the 
eternal  Reason  accompanying  it  enters  the  astronomer’s  mind 
and  reveals  to  him  the  scientific 
and  therein  reveals  to  him  the  eternal  Reason  itself,  that  is,  God. 

1  Tylor,  Primitive  Culture,  vol.  ii.  p.  327  ;  see  vol.  i.  p.  386. 


significance  and  law  of  the  star, 


46 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


And  from  all  microscopic  objects,  hidden  in  their  littleness  from 
the  human  senses,  but  revealed  by  the  microscope,  and  from  the 
internal  composition  of  bodies,  from  molecules  and  ethers  re¬ 
vealed  not  to  sense  but  to  pure  intelligence  by  the  experiments 
of  the  chemist,  are  revealed  also  the  universal  truths  and  laws  of 
the  absolute  Reason,  regnant  in  the  inmost  constitution  and  es¬ 
sence  of  things  as  really  as  in  the  remotest  space  and  time.  Tims 
it  may  be  said  with  a  true  significance  that  we  see  all  things  in 
God.  Th  is  Kepler  recognized  in  saying,  “  O  God,  I  read  thy 
thoughts  after  thee,”  and  in  the  outbursts  of  his  sublime  and 
adoring  enthusiasm  before  the  creator  of  the  universe,  recorded 
in  various  places  in  his  scientific  writings.  Many  others  of  the 
greatest  scientific  geniuses  have  expressed  in  a  like  devout  spirit 
their  consciousness  of  God  in  their  scientific  researches.  So 
in  ancient  times  Plotinus  regarded  philosophical  investigation 
as  true  prayer  to  God. 

Professor  J.  R.  Seeley,  in  his  “Natural  Religion,”  maintains 
that  the  enthusiasm  of  scientific  investigations  constitutes  a  relig¬ 
ion,  and  may  fully  satisfy  the  constitutional  religiousness  of  man. 
Certainly  if  science  limits  knowledge  to  material  things  and 
physical  forces,  if  shutting  man  up  in  materialism,  like  a  mouse 
in  a  glass  receiver,  it  exhausts  the  air  by  which  the  spirit  lives, 
however  great  the  enthusiasm  and  devotedness  with  which  the 
scientist  works  his  air-pump,  it  cannot  be  religion  nor  meet  the 
demands  of  the  religious  constitution  of  man.  But  when  a  sci¬ 
entist  reverently  recognizes  the  fact  that  the  light  of  all  his  sci¬ 
entific  seeing  is  the  light  of  truth  in  the  absolute  and  universal 
Reason,  he  must  reverently  feel  that  in  all  his  explorations  of 
the  universe  he  is  intellectually  receiving  communications  from 
the  God  of  truth,  and  his  scientific  enthusiasm  will  continuallv 
nourish  his  religious  reverence. 

It  is  not  meant  that  in  scientific  thought  the  attention  of  the 
scientist  is  directed  to  the  absolute  Reason,  whose  universal  prin¬ 
ciples  he  trusts  without  wavering  in  all  his  investigations,  and  on 
which  all  his  conclusions  depend  entirely  ;  but  only  that  his  de¬ 
pendence  thereon,  though  complete,  is  implicit,  and  perhaps  the 
more  complete  and  free  from  doubt  or  hesitation  because  it  is 
implicit.  A  similar  explanation  must  be  made  of  the  conscious¬ 
ness  of  God  in  the  moral  feelings,  beliefs  and  actions.  In  the 
distinctively  religious  consciousness  the  person’s  attention  is  al¬ 
ready  directed  to  the  divinity  as  manifested  in  some  way,  and  he 
is  trying  to  form  an  idea  of  him  in  thought,  and  to  devise  an 


GOD  KNOWN  IN  EXPERIENCE  OR  CONSCIOUSNESS. 


47 


acceptable  service.  In  the  scientific  and  moral  consciousness  the 
attention  is  occupied  with  scientific  and  moral  objects,  and  the 
consciousness  of  God,  though  necessarily  implied,  does  not  arrest 
attention.  Hence  the  person  may  never  have  apprehended  it  in 
thought.  But  a  correct  and  complete  analysis  of  his  mental  state 
will  disclose  this  implicit  consciousness  of  God  in  it ;  and  the 
normal  development  of  his  rational  powers  and  susceptibilities 
will  bring  it  out  into  explicitness.  Hence  it  is  truly  said  that  in 
the  development  of  man’s  consciousness  of  himself  and  of  his 
own  mental  states  the  consciousness  of  God  is  always  found  in 
the  background. 

From  the  foregoing  discussion  it  is  evident  that,  when  in  re¬ 
flective  thought  we  examine  the  evidence  that  God  exists,  we 
start  with  the  idea  of  the  divinity  and  with  the  belief  that  he 
exists.  The  investigation  is  analogous  to  the  speculative  inquiry 
whether  we  have  good  grounds  for  believing  that  the  outward 
world  exists.  The  world  has  presented  itself  in  our  consciousness 
ain  divers  portions  and  in  divers  manners;  ”  but  it  has  to  be  in¬ 
vestigated  and  defined  in  thought  before  we  have  a  definite  idea 
of  it;  and  in  every  age  the  question  whether  we  have  real  knowl¬ 
edge  of  its  existence  comes  up  anew.  And  in  the  various  forms 
of  idealism,  acosmic  pantheism,  phenomenalism  and  complete 
agnosticism,  speculative  doubt  or  denial  of  our  knowledge  of  the 
outward  world  has  perhaps  been  avowed  by  as  many  as  have 
ever  avowed  speculative  doubt  or  denial  of  our  knowledge  of 
God  ;  and  on  very  similar  grounds.  At  last  we  find  as  the 
result  of  our  investigation,  that  the  belief  in  God  is  as  well  war¬ 
ranted  to  be  real  knowledge  as  any  other  of  our  primitive  be¬ 
liefs. 


CHAPTER  III. 


GOD  KNOWN  BY  REVELATION. 

Man  knows  God  through  God’s  revelation  of  himself  to  man* 

Our  first  question  is,  What  is  revelation  ? 

In  thinking  on  this  question  it  is  a  common  impression  that 
revelation  is  distinctively  and  exclusively  an  act  of  God.  But 
when  we  reflect,  it  is  evident  that  our  knowledge  of  any  being 
whatever  presupposes  some  action  of  the  being  by  which  it  re¬ 
veals  itself. 

Any  object  may  be  said  to  reveal  itself  when  by  action  on 
us  it  presents  itself  in  consciousness.  Revelation,  therefore,  is 
not  distinctive  of  man’s  knowledge  of  God.  It  is  equally  true 
that  man  knows  the  outward  world  through  its  revelation  of 
itself  to  man.  The  outward  object  acts  in  some  way  on  the 
sensorium  and  in  sensation  presents  or  reveals  itself  to  the  con¬ 
sciousness,  and  the  mind  reacts  and  perceives  the  object.  Thus 
every  act  of  sense-perception  has  two  aspects  :  the  outward 
reality  acting  on  the  sensorium  and  revealing  itself  to  the  con¬ 
sciousness,  and  the  mind  reacting  and  perceiving  the  object. 
These  are  two  different  but  complemental  aspects  of  the  act  of 
knowing  the  object,  and  each  is  essential  to  the  reality  of  the 
knowledge.  And  it  is  in  such  a  perception  of  an  outward  reality 
that  man  is  awakened  to  the  consciousness  of  himself.  And  it  is 
on  occasion  of  some  impact  of  an  outward  object  that  a  rational 
intuition  first  flashes  into  light,  like  a  spark  from  steel  when 
struck  by  a  flint,  and  becomes  the  regulator  and  guide  of  all 
thought  and  action. 

Thus  the  knowledge  of  a  finite  being  can  never  be  self-origin¬ 
ating  and  unconditioned.  It  must  first  be  awakened  from  with¬ 
out.  It  depends  ultimately  on  the  revelation  to  the  mind  of 
an  object  beyond  it.  Absolute  knowledge  has  been  defined  : 
“  Thought  thinking  itself,  knowing  nothing  of  any  other  outside 
of  itself ;  ’  it  is  not  originated  in  the  mind  on  occasion  of  the  ac¬ 
tion  on  it  of  any  object  from  without  and  is  completed  as  knowl¬ 
edge  within  the  consciousness  of  self.  God  alone  has  such  knowl- 


GOD  KNOWN  BY  REVELATION. 


49 


edge.  No  revelation  is  ever  made  to  him.  No  presentation  of 
any  object  from  without  awakens  him  to  consciousness  and  calls 
forth  his  mind  to  action;  he  is  at  once  subject  and  object;  the 
universe  is  eternally  thought  in  his  intelligence,  before  it  is  pro¬ 
jected  by  his  power  into  finite  reality  in  space  and  time.  Man 
is  incapable  of  absolute  knowledge.  His  spirit  slumbers  till  con¬ 
tact  with  the  outward  world  awakens  it  to  consciousness  in  know¬ 
ing  the  presented  object.  The  revealing  of  the  object  to  the  hu¬ 
man  spirit  is  also  the  revealing  of  the  spirit  to  itself.  Once  thus 
awakened  it  not  only  knows  outward  objects,  but  can  also  make 
itself  the  object  of  knowledge,  can  be  at  once  object  and  subject 
of  its  own  thought,  and  complete  the  circuit  of  knowledge  within 
its  own  self-consciousness.  Thus  man,  even  in  the  sphere  of  in¬ 
telligence,  is  dependent  on  God.  The  action  of  the  outward  uni¬ 
verse  on  the  slumbering  spirit  awakens  it  to  activity  in  knowing 
the  presented  object,  and  to  the  consciousness  of  itself  as  spirit. 
And  because  God  is  ever  active  in  the  universe,  we  may  properly 
say  it  is  he  who  by  his  touch  awakens  the  slumbering  spirit  to 
consciousness  and  knowledge,  as  a  mother  by  her  loving  touch 
awakens  her  sleeping  child. 

Revelation,  in  its  primary  meaning,  is  the  immediate  presen¬ 
tation  of  an  object  in  consciousness.  But  it  is  not  limited  to 
this.  It  is  also  revelation  when  the  object  presented  in  con¬ 
sciousness  is  an  external  effect  from  which  the  mind  infers  what 
the  agent  is  that  is  causing  it.  If  I  see  arrows  successively  strik¬ 
ing  a  target,  I  infer  that  some  one  is  shooting  them.  From  the 
motions  of  the  planets,  an  astronomer  infers  the  force  of  gravita¬ 
tion  with  which  they  act  on  one  another,  and  the  law  according 
to  which  they  uniformly  act.  From  the  phenomena  of  light,  sci¬ 
entists  infer  the  existence  and  vibrations  of  an  ether,  an  extra- 
sensible  agent  never  perceived  by  sense.  We  properly  say  that 
these  agents  reveal  themselves  in  the  effects  of  their  action, 
though  it  is  only  the  effect  which  is  presented  in  consciousness, 
and  the  agent  is  revealed  only  to  the  intelligent  thought.  In 
these  cases  it  should  be  noted  that  the  agents  are  revealing  them¬ 
selves  by  causing  the  effects  at  the  time  when  these  are  under 
our  observation. 

An  agent  may  also  reveal  what  it  was  when  energizing  in  pro¬ 
ducing  effects,  to  observers  of  the  effects  long  after  the  causal 
agency  had  ceased.  In  the  buildings,  implements,  sculptures 
and  inscriptions  disclosed  in  exploring  buried  cities,  the  ancient 

inhabitants  are  revealed  in  their  history,  character  and  civiliza- 

4 


50 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


tion.  The  men  of  the  early  stone-age  still  reveal  their  existence 
and  their  barbarism  in  their  rude  implements  of  stone.  Here 
also  it  is  only  the  effect  which  is  presented  in  consciousness ;  the 
agents  are  revealed  only  to  thought. 

Thus  the  cases  in  which  the  object  reveals  itself  directly  in  the 
consciousness,  are  distinguished  from  those  in  which  only  an  ef¬ 
fect  or  product  presents  itself  in  the  consciousness,  and  the  agent 
that  caused  the  effect  is  revealed  by  inference  to  the  thought. 
In  all  these  ways  man’s  physical  environment  reveals  itself  to 
the  man. 

In  a  manner  entirely  analogous  man’s  spiritual  environment 
reveals  itself  to  man  through  his  spiritual  capacities  and  suscep¬ 
tibilities.  There  is  a  spiritual  or  supernatural  system  behind  the 
physical  and  revealing  itself  through  it.  For  the  physical  uni¬ 
verse  itself  is  an  expression  of  the  archetypal  thought  of  God. 
The  spiritual  system  environs  man  as  really  as  the  physical  does, 
and  through  his  spiritual  capacities  and  susceptibilities  he  is  able 
to  discern  it.  His  spiritual  environment  reveals  itself  to  him, 
both  directly  in  its  action  on  him  in  consciousness  and  mediately 
through  effects,  which  he  observes,  revealing  spiritual  agency 
acting  at  the  time  or  having  acted  in  the  past. 

The  line  of  demarkation  between  the  personal  and  the  imper¬ 
sonal  is  also  the  line  of  demarkation  between  the  supernatural 
and  the  natural,  between  spirit  and  matter.  This  is  of  funda¬ 
mental  importance  in  investigating  the  reasons  for  believing  the 
existence  of  God.1  We  start  out  in  our  quest  after  God  with 
knowledge  of  the  supernatural  and  spiritual  already  attained  in 
our  knowledge  of  ourselves.  With  this  knowledge  we  are  able 
to  recognize  other  personal  and  supernatural  beings  as  they  re¬ 
veal  themselves  to  us.  Thus  is  revealed  to  us  a  realm  of  super¬ 
sensible,  spiritual  and  supernatural  persons,  including  ourselves 
and  our  fellow-men. 

Man  as  a  corporeal  being  is  known  to  us  through  the  senses. 
If  he  comes  within  the  range  of  our  vision  we  see  him ;  if  he 
touches  us  we  feel  him  ;  if  he  is  out  of  sight,  buried  it  may  be  in 
a  fallen  mine,  he  reveals  himself  to  the  ear  by  his  cries.  To  the 
senses,  however,  he  is  presented  only  as  a  corporeal  being,  like 
any  other  body. 

How,  then,  does  he  reveal  himself  as  a  rational  free  agent  ? 
How  does  he  reveal  himself  as  capable  of  knowing  God,  and  the 
True,  the  Right,  the  Perfect  and  the  Good,  and  of  sympathizing 
1  Philosophical  Basis  of  Theism,  pp.  409-414. 


GOD  KNOWN  BY  REVELATION. 


51 


with  ns  in  our  interest  in  these  realities  ?  In  a  word,  how  does 
he  reveal  himself  to  us  as  a  personal  being  ? 

In  one  way,  by  the  products  of  his  actions  in  the  past.  By 
these  he  reveals,  not  only  his  personality,  but  also  the  peculiari¬ 
ties  of  his  individual  character,  attainments  and  genius.  St. 
Peter’s  Church  is  the  thought  of  Michael  Angelo  built  up  in 
stone.  The  Sistine  Madonna  reveals  the  genius  of  Raphael  and 
his  ideal  of  beauty.  The  steam  -  engine,  the  power-loom,  the 
electric  telegraph,  severally  reveal  the  genius  and  express  the 
thought  of  their  inventors. 

Another  way  in  which  a  man  reveals  his  personality  is  by  his 
actions  under  our  notice.  These  reveal  what  he  is  ;  they  are 
symbols  or  signs  through  which  we  read  his  thought,  his  charac¬ 
ter  and  his  powers.  In  all  revelation  the  mind  reacts  on  the 
object  revealed  and  apprehends  its  reality  and  significance.  It 
sees  the  invisible  through  the  visible,  the  supersensible  through 
the  sensible.  In  like  manner  and  by  the  same  power  we  perceive 
the  personality  of  a  man  when  he  is  present  and  acts  before  us. 
We  look  through  his  action  and  perceive  his  personality.  By 
his  action  he  reveals  to  us  his  intelligence,  his  knowledge  of  the 
true,  the  right,  the  perfect,  the  good,  and  of  God  ;  he  reveals  his 
conscious  freedom  and  moral  responsibility ;  we  know  him  to  be 
a  rational,  free  person  like  ourselves.  In  all  his  knowing,  man’s 
sense  and  his  reason  are  never  disparted  ;  his  perceptive  and  his 
rational  intuition  act  together.  When  an  object  of  sense  is  pre¬ 
sented,  he  perceives  it  as  presented  to  the  sense,  and  in  the 
same  instant,  by  implicit  rational  intuition,  knows  it  in  the  forms 
in  which  reason  sees  it.  Then  in  thought  he  recognizes  it  as 
having  the  qualities  which  he  ascribes  to  bodies  or  impersonal 
beings.  In  the  same  way,  when  a  man  acts  before  him,  he  per¬ 
ceives  in  him  the  qualities  which  he  knows  in  his  consciousness 
of  himself  as  qualities  of  a  rational,  free  person. 

Men  also  reveal  their  personality  by  words.  The  fact  that 
man  is  able  to  use  language  is  itself  a  revelation  of  his  personal 
and  spiritual  power.  But  when  man  has  acquired  the  power  of 
communicating  thought  by  words,  this  of  itself  is  an  inadequate 
way  of  revealing  himself  ;  for  it  is  only  through  the  knowledge 
of  beings  and  actions  that  the  meaning  of  the  words  can  be 
learned.  A  mother  cannot  communicate  to  her  child  the  mean¬ 
ing  of  the  word  mother  by  merely  telling  it,  “  I  am  your  mother.” 
She  reveals  the  meaning  of  the  word  to  the  child  by  the  life-long 
action  of  a  mother’s  love.  Actions  speak  louder  than  words. 


52 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


And  it  is  by  their  action  before  us  that  men  reveal  their  powers, 
their  characters  and  their  attainments.  But  when  the  meaning 
of  words  as  symbols  of  realities  has  been  learned,  they  become 
an  important  medium  of  revelation. 

Another  way  in  which  men  reveal  themselves  as  personal  be¬ 
ings  is  by  natural  signs.  The  soul  looks  out  on  us  through  the 
eye ;  it  reveals  itself  through  the  attitude,  the  gait,  the  gestures. 
What  a  tell-tale  is  the  human  face  ;  how  thoughts  and  feelings 
flush  upon  it,  even  those  which  the  words  deny  and  the  actions 
try  to  hide.  A  look  may  reveal  the  deepest  secret  of  the  heart, 
a  tone  may  disclose  the  hidden  conflict  and  sorrow  of  a  life. 
Soul  comes  almost  into  immediate  communication  with  soul.  The 
power  of  reading  these  natural  signs  seems  to  be  spontaneous 
and  untaught.  A  babe  in  its  mother’s  arms,  long  before  it  can 
speak,  answers  its  mother’s  smile  with  a  smile,  her  frown  with 
tears.  All  which  it  sees  is  a  certain  configuration  of  lines  and 
lineaments,  of  lights  and  shadows ;  but  through  these  it  looks 
into  her  heart  and  sees  her  love  or  her  displeasure.  It  deciphers 
these  hieroglyphics  of  nature,  taught  only  by  him  who  prompts 
the  wild  goose  to  fly  from  the  arctic  winter  and 

“  from  zone  to  zone 

Guides  through  the  pathless  sky  her  certain  course.” 

There  are  also  alleged  facts  of  telepathy,  accounts  of  a  man’s 
revelation  of  himself  to  another  person  at  a  distance,  apparently 
by  some  immediate  action  of  mind  on  mind  of  which  science  as 
yet  has  no  explanation.  Such  accounts  are  numerous,  and  many 
of  them  seem  to  be  well  authenticated.  If  true,  they  would  be 
another  and  as  yet  unexplained  revelation  of  man  as  a  rational 
free  personality,  a  supernatural  being. 

The  revelation  of  man’s  personality  to  man  is  not  merely 
through  outward  effects  from  which,  when  observed,  we  infer 
his  personality.  There  is  also  action  of  spirit  on  spirit,  which 
is  immediate,  in  the  sense  that  the  effects  produced  are  within 
the  consciousness  of  the  recipient.  In  the  presence  of  a  man  of 
grand  moral  and  spiritual  power  we  are  elevated  and  inspired. 
The  influence  of  such  a  man  cannot  be  measured  by  specific  acts. 
It  is  a  bracing,  tonic,  health-giving  atmosphere,  invigorating  the 
whole  community.  In  a  great  congregation  assembled  for  the 
accomplishment  of  a  grand  moral  and  spiritual  end,  the  assem¬ 
bly  itself,  animated  by  one  grand  aim,  breathes  upon  the  speaker 
and  upon  every  individual  an  inspiration  such  as  no  speaker 
alone,  however  eloquent,  can  impart.  When  a  human  spirit,  by 


GOD  KNOWN  BY  REVELATION. 


53 


whatever  means,  succeeds  in  putting  itselt  into  communication 
with  another,  it  immediately  begins  to  act  on  and  influence  that 
other.  Love  and  friendship  quicken  and  inspire.  Sympathy  on 
great  speculative  questions  and  practical  enterprises  redouble  the 
power.  One  may  influence  another  by  argument  and  persua¬ 
sion,  by  example,  by  courage,  hope,  lofty  aspiration.  Two  per¬ 
sons  may  go  through  life  together,  loving,  inspiring,  ennobling 
and  forming  each  other.  The  spirit  of  a  man  acts  continually 
on  the  spirit  of  another,  continually  reveals  itself  in  the  con¬ 
sciousness  of  the  other. 

Thus  man  reveals  himself  to  us.  He  reveals  that  in  him 
which  is  imperceptible  to  sense,  which  is  supersensible  and  su¬ 
pernatural.  He  reveals  his  personality,  his  free  will,  his  char¬ 
acter  and  aims.  Thus  we  find  ourselves  in  a  moral  and  spiritual 
system. 

Revelation,  therefore,  is  not  peculiar  to  God.  Any  being 
must  reveal  itself  in  order  to  be  known. 

God  also  reveals  himself  to  men.  This  revelation  I  now  pro¬ 
ceed  to  consider. 

The  revelation  of  God  has  come  to  be  regarded  by  many  as 
solely  the  revelation  recorded  in  the  Bible.  But  in  fact  all 
knowledge  of  God  presupposes  some  action  of  God  revealing  him¬ 
self.  The  revelation  in  Christ  and  his  abiding  Spirit  is  not  the 
only  one,  but  is  the  culmination  of  all  God’s  revelations  of  him¬ 
self  to  men.  It  is  only  because  it  is  such  that  all  the  treasures 
of  wisdom  and  knowledge  are  hid  in  Christ. 

God  reveals  himself  directly  to  men  in  consciousness.  Even 
in  the  sphere  of  intellect  and  in  all  scientific  thought,  man  finds 
universal  principles  shining  in  the  firmament  of  his  thought,  re¬ 
vealing  themselves  by  their  own  light,  and  enlightening,  guiding 
and  regulating  all  his  thinking.  In  these  the  universal  and  ab¬ 
solute  Reason  shines  into  his  mind  and  reveals  itself  in  his  con¬ 
sciousness.  All  science  assumes  principles  of  universal  reason, 
and  consists  in  discovering  and  declaring  the  revelations  of  uni¬ 
versal  reason  in  the  universe. 

In  the  practical  conduct  of  life  man  finds  himself  under  ob¬ 
ligation  to  obey  moral  law.  Thus  again  he  finds  himself 
confronted  with  the  absolute  Reason,  revealing  itself  in  his  con¬ 
sciousness  and  speaking  imperatively  in  his  conscience. 

Man’s  distinctively  religious  consciousness  is  his  consciousness 
of  God  revealing  himself  in  his  soul. 

God  reveals  himself  not  merely  in  the  consciousness  directly, 


54 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


but  also  to  intelligent  thought  in  effects  which  reveal  him  as 
their  cause. 

He  reveals  himself  through  the  universe  itself.  It  is  essential 
in  the  theistic  idea  of  the  universe  that  it  is  the  progressive  ex¬ 
pression  of  God’s  thought,  the  progressive  realization  of  the 
archetypal  ideas  of  his  wisdom  and  love.  As  such  it  is  in  its 
essence  the  continuous  and  progressive  revelation  of  God.  The 
words  in  which  he  reveals  himself  are  worlds  and  systems  and 
time-long  action  of  providence  and  redemption.  It  is  a  necessity 
of  our  rational  constitution  that  in  our  processes  of  knowing  and 
thinking  we  must  know  that  the  absolute  Being  exists  as  the 
ground  of  the  universe.  But  what  the  absolute  Being  is,  is  re¬ 
vealed  through  the  universe  itself.  All  merely  a  priori  at¬ 
tempts  to  define  him  can  lead  only  to  great  sounding  words  sig¬ 
nifying  nothing.1 

God  reveals  himself,  in  the  universe  as  a  whole,  both  in  the 
abiding  products  of  his  action  in  the  past  and  in  his  continuous 
action  through  all  time.  His  revelation  of  himself  to  us  is  not  by 
magical  and  abnormal  processes,  but  in  processes  and  products 
which  the  human  mind,  in  the  exercise  of  its  rational  faculties 
according  to  its  rational  constitution  and  laws,  can  take  in  and 
interpret ;  not  through  the  extraordinary,  the  special,  the  mirac¬ 
ulous  alone,  but  also  through  the  ordinary  and  the  uniform  ac¬ 
cording  to  general  laws.  So  Paul  says  :  “  The  invisible  things 
of  him  since  the  creation  of  the  world  are  clearly  seen,  being  per¬ 
ceived  through  the  things  that  are  made,  even  his  everlasting 
power  and  divinity.”  “  He  is  not  far  from  each  one  of  us.” 
Immanent  and  continuously  active  in  the  universe,  he  is  continu¬ 
ously  revealing,  in  all  its  wondrously  varied  and  complex  action, 
“  the  exceedingly  variegated  wisdom  of  God.” 2  At  all  the 
points  in  our  physical  and  spiritual  constitution  at  which  we  are 
touched  by  the  physical  and  spiritual  universe  and  receive  its  in¬ 
fluence,  we  are  touched  by  God  and  receive  his  influence  and  his 
revelation  of  himself.  So  Goethe  says  :  — 

“  Woaldst  thou  with  thv  bounded  sisdit 
Make  survey  of  the  Infinite  ? 

Look  right  and  left  and  everywhere 
Into  the  finite  ;  you  ’ll  find  it  there.”  3 

And  the  Psalmist  gives  a  striking  description  of  himself  as  en¬ 
compassed  by  God,  and  beset  by  his  action  and  influence  on 

1  Phil.  Basis  of  Theism,  pp.  287,  289. 

3  Goethe  :  Gott,  Gemiith  und  Welt. 


2  Eph.  iii.  10. 


GOD  KNOWN  BY  REVELATION. 


55 


every  side.  “  Thou  searchest  out  my  path  and  my  lying  down, 
and  art  acquainted  with  all  my  ways.  Thou  hast  beset  me  be¬ 
hind  and  before,  and  laid  thy  hand  upon  me.”  As  the  physical 
world  environs  a  man,  acts  on  him  on  every  side  and  thus  reveals 
the  realities  known  in  physical  science,  so,  in  the  universe,  God 
environs  him,  acts  on  him  from  every  side  and  reveals  the  reali¬ 
ties  known  by  experience  in  religion  and  by  reflection  in  theo¬ 
logical  thought. 

God  reveals  himself  in  the  physical  system,  both  in  the  con¬ 
stitution  of  nature,  and  in  his  immanence  and  action  in  it  con¬ 
tinuously  and  progressively  expressing  his  eternal  thought.  Ac¬ 
cording  to  evolution,  nature  is  not  a  completed  and  fixed  product, 
but  is  always  plastic,  always  growing,  revealing  from  epoch  to 
epoch  new  and  higher  powers.  It  is  not  a  casting  which  any  en¬ 
largement  or  change  must  break.  It  is  more  analogous  to  an 
organism  than  to  a  machine.  It  requires  therefore  the  recogni¬ 
tion  of  God  as  always  immanent  and  active  in  nature,  progres¬ 
sively  revealing  himself  in  higher  and  higher  manifestations  of 
his  perfections.1 

God  reveals  himself  also  in  the  moral  and  spiritual  system. 

The  fact  that  man  finds  himself  and  his  fellow-men  in  a  rational 
and  moral  system,  of  itself  necessarily  carries  the  thought  to  God. 
The  mere  knowledge  of  himself  and  of  other  men  as  isolated  per¬ 
sons  would  not  of  itself  be  the  knowledge  of  a  moral  system. 
But  he  does  not  know  himself  and  other  men  in  isolation,  but  as 
fellow-men.  As  soon  as  men  know  one  another  as  rational,  per¬ 
sonal  beings,  they  know  one  another  as  existing  in  a  community, 
with  common  knowledge,  common  principles  of  reason,  common 
susceptibility  of  motive  and  emotion,  and  under  reciprocal  obli¬ 
gations.  Therein  they  know  themselves  in  the  unity  of  a  ra¬ 
tional  and  moral  system.  But  their  unity  in  such  a  system  is 
possible  only  by  virtue  of  their  common  relations  to  God,  the 
absolute  Reason  or  Spirit,  who  is  the  ultimate  ground  of  the 

svstem  and  reveals  himself  in  it.  Without  this  basis  in  absolute 
•/ 

Reason  the  system  is  disintegrated,  and  only  disconnected  indi¬ 
viduals  remain. 

God  reveals  himself  also  in  the  constitution  of  man  as  a  ra¬ 
tional,  free,  personal  being,  susceptible  of  rational  motives  and 
emotions  (Vernunft-trieb') . 

God  reveals  himself  also  in  his  action  in  human  history  in 
providential  and  moral  government. 

1  Phil.  Basis  of  Theism,  pp.  491-536. 


56 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


He  further  reveals  himself  in  his  action  in  human  history  re¬ 
deeming  men  from  sin,  culminating  in  Jesus  the  Christ. 

He  continues  to  reveal  himself  in  his  redemptive  action  in  the 
world  since  the  death  of  Christ ;  in  the  presence  and  power  of 
his  Spirit  renewing  and  sanctifying  men  ;  in  all  the  distinctive 
Christian  consciousness  of  believers  in  Christ ;  and  in  the  devel¬ 
opment  of  his  kingdom  of  righteousness,  peace  and  good-will. 

God’s  revelation  of  himself  directly  in  the  consciousness  may 
be  called  private  or  prophetic.  His  revelation  of  himself  in  the 
universe,  in  the  constitution  and  course  of  nature,  in  the  con¬ 
stitution  and  history  of  man,  in  his  redemption  of  men  in  Christ 
and  the  establishment  of  his  kingdom  on  earth,  may  be  called 
public  or  historical. 

Revelation  is  not  restricted  to  communicating  knowledge  of 
something  pertaining  to  God  which  had  been  unknown  before. 
My  friend  may  reveal  anew  his  well-known  friendship  by  acts  of 
friendship  every  day.  And  God  may  reveal  to  us  anew  in  the 
experience  of  every  day,  his  law,  his  righteousness,  his  mercy 
and  his  sufficient  grace.  The  essence  of  the  revelation  is  not  in 
the  newness  of  God’s  perfection  revealed,  but  in  the  action  of 
God  revealing  it,  “new  every  morning  and  fresh  every  evening.” 

We  may  not  set  up  the  revelation  of  man  to  man  as  the  exact 
pattern  of  God’s  revelation,  nor  assume  that  the  latter  must  be 
confined  within  the  limits  of  the  former.  God  must  have  access 
to  the  human  mind  in  ways  transcending  man’s  ;  especially  in 
the  immediate  action  of  mind  on  mind  we  must  suppose  a  freer 
access  of  the  Spirit  of  God  to  the  human  spirit,  and  a  more  inti¬ 
mate  communion  with  it  than  is  possible  to  man. 

From  the  foregoing  explanations  it  appears  that  God’s  revela¬ 
tion  of  himself  to  us  is  analogous  to  the  revelation  of  themselves 
to  us  made  by  material  things  or  by  our  fellow-men.  God  acts 
on  us  or  under  our  notice,  and  our  minds  reacting  thereon  know 
him ;  it  may  be  immediately,  as  we  perceive  outward  things,  or 
mediately  by  thought  discovering  what  the  object  affecting  us 
is  and  interpreting  its  significance.  God  finds  us  and  we  find 
him.  Coleridge  says :  u  In  the  Bible  there  is  more  that  finds 
me  than  I  have  experienced  in  all  other  books  put  together  ; 
the  words  of  the  Bible  find  me  at  greater  depths  of  my  being ; 
and  whatever  thus  finds  me  brings  with  it  an  irresistible  evi¬ 
dence  of  its  having  proceeded  from  the  Holy  Spirit.”  It  is 
God  who  finds  us  in  the  reading  of  the  Bible.  It  is  his  Spirit 
who,  through  its  truths,  moves  our  spiritual  being  in  its  pro- 


GOD  KNOWN  BY  REVELATION. 


57 


foundest  depths.  God  reveals  himself  to  the  readers  of  the 
Scriptures  as  really  as  to  their  writers.  If  God  exists  and  man 
is  a  spiritual  being  in  his  image,  it  is  no  more  strange  or  unin¬ 
telligible  that  God  should  reveal  himself  to  man  as  God,  than 
that  outward  things  should  reveal  themselves  as  objects  of  sense, 
or  men  as  personal  and  spiritual  beings. 

The  recognition  of  the  fact  that  God  reveals  himself  and  that 
our  knowledge  of  him  is  through  his  revelation,  is  essential  to 
the  right  and  wholesome  study  of  theology.  It  is  the  teaching 
alike  of  the  Scriptures  and  of  philosophy  that  it  is  primarily  God 
who  seeks  man,  not  primarily  man  who  seeks  God.  And  this  is 
true  of  God's  communication  with  man  at  every  point  from  the 
beginning  to  the  end  of  his  historical  action  redeeming  men  from 
sin.  This  has  often  been  overlooked  by  theologians.  They  have 
pushed  their  investigations  as  if  by  sheer  dint  of  thinking  they 
were  to  find  God  and  to  prove  his  existence  to  others.  But  if 
there  is  no  movement  of  God  toward  us  revealing  his  presence, 
no  action  of  God  on  us  or  before  us  on  which  our  minds  react, 
we  reach  after  all  our  toil  only  figments  created  by  our  own 
thinking.  God  seeks  and  finds  us  before  we  can  find  him.  And 
this  is  only  affirming  of  the  knowledge  of  God  what  is  true  of 
our  knowledge  of  all  other  beings.  The  true  attitude  of  a  the¬ 
ologian  is  that  of  an  ancient  prophet,  the  attitude  of  active  re¬ 
ceptivity :  “  I  will  hear  what  God,  Jehovah,  will  speak.”  “As 
the  eyes  of  servants  look  unto  the  hand  of  their  master,  as  the 
eyes  of  a  maiden  unto  the  hand  of  her  mistress,  so  our  eyes 
look  unto  Jehovah  our  God.”  To  him  who  is  thus  intent  to 
“  mark  the  first  signal  of  his  hand,”  the  signs  and  manifesta¬ 
tions  of  God’s  presence  will  appear,  through  which  he  reveals 
his  power,  wisdom  and  love. 

The  question,  What  is  revelation  ?  has  now  been  answered. 
The  next  question  to  be  considered  is,  What  does  God  reveal  ? 
The  answer  is,  He  reveals  himself.  As  Clement  of  Alexandria 
says :  “  There  is  a  great  difference  between  preaching  God  and 
preaching  things  about  God.” 

God  reveals  himself  in  his  personality,  in  his  divine  power, 
wisdom  and  love,  as  distinguished  from  communicating  certain 
truths,  doctrines  or  commands  enunciated  in  words  ;  as  distin¬ 
guished  from  philosophy,  ethics  or  theology.  His  revelation  is 
not  primarily  of  propositions  communicated  in  words,  but  he  re¬ 
veals  himself  in  his  own  action. 

What  he  reveals  is  himself  as  distinguished  from  the  Bible. 


58 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


God’s  revelation  does  not  consist  of  inditing  the  Bible  and  giving 
it  to  men  to  convert  them  to  the  life  of  faith  and  love.  He  re¬ 
veals  himself  in  the  grand  courses  of  his  own  action  in  the  crea¬ 
tion,  preservation  and  progressive  evolution  of  the  universe,  in 
providential  and  moral  government,  and  in  redemption. 

What  he  reveals  is  himself  as  distinguished  from  a  scientific¬ 
ally  formulated  system  of  the  universe.  Nature  reveals  no  sys- 
temized  astronomy  ;  it  only  reveals  suns  and  planets  in  their 
complicated  movements  and  interactions.  The  astronomer  must 
find  his  astronomy  by  observing  these  movements  and  interac¬ 
tions  and  calculating  their  laws.  And  he  does  not  stop  in  his 
formulas,  nor  let  his  theorems,  his  demonstrations  and  his  system 
hide  the  starry  heaven  from  his  mind  ;  but  in  it  he  declares 
clearly  and  exactly  what  the  starry  heaven  is.  So,  because  man 
is  rational,  he  must  try  to  define  and  systemize  his  knowledge 
of  God.  But  he  must  not  stop  in  his  definitions  and  his  sys¬ 
tem,  nor  even  in  his  Bible,  nor  let  them  come  between  him 
and  the  living  God  and  hide  him.  He  must  use  them  as  de¬ 
claring  what  God  is  as  he  has  revealed  himself  in  his  action,  and 
as  the  man  through  God’s  action  has  found  him. 

What  God  reveals  is  himself  as  distinguished  from  a  religion. 
He  reveals  himself  in  the  experience  of  the  person  as  the  quick- 
ener  of  his  faith  and  love,  as  the  being  with  whom  he  communes 
in  worship,  and  who  is  with  him  as  a  present  helper  in  the  work 
and  the  burdens,  the  joys  and  the  sorrows  of  his  life.  This  com¬ 
munion  with  God  is  religion,  but  it  is  so  because  God  has  re¬ 
vealed  himself,  and  not  a  religion  ;  and  the  man  has  found  God 
in  his  revelation  of  himself,  and  so  has  found  access  to  him  in 
communion. 


CHAPTER  IV. 


GOD  KNOWN  THROUGH  REVELATION  BY  THE  ACTION  OF 
MAN’S  MIND  RECEIVING  AND  UNDERSTANDING  IT. 

Revelation  imparts  no  knowledge  without  the  action  of  the 
recipient,  perceiving  the  object  revealed,  attending  to  it  and  ap¬ 
prehending  it  in  thought. 

1.  This  is  true  of  all  objects  presented  or  revealed  in  conscious¬ 
ness.  We  do  not  so  much  see  with  the  eye  and  perceive  with 
the  senses  as  through  them.  The  mind  looks  through  the  eye 
and  perceives  the  invisible  ;  it  darts  its  intelligence  through  the 
sense  and  reads  in  the  presented  object  a  significance  transcend¬ 
ing  sense,  yet  disclosing  the  true  reality  revealed  in  sense.  When 
one  looks  on  a  page  of  Chinese  writing,  all  which  he  sees  is 
some  black  marks  on  a  white  surface.  When  he  reads  his  Eng- 
lish  Bible  and  thanks  God  that  we  have  it  “  in  our  easy  lan¬ 
guage,”  he  sees  with  the  eye  no  more  than  on  the  Chinese  page ; 
but  through  the  eye  his  mind  reads  thoughts  which  are  divine 
and  sees  the  kingdom  of  God  coming  among  men.  So  with  the 
eye  man  sees  the  face  of  the  earth,  but  through  his  eye  he  reads 
its  true  significance  and  sees  reality  which  is  not  seen.  When 
one  is  prospecting  for  ore  he  sees  only  certain  forms  and  arrange¬ 
ments  of  rock,  but  to  the  intelligent  miner  these  are  the  signs 
and  pass-words  by  which  his  thought  passes  to  the  secret  of  the 
treasure.  Physical  science  itself  is  a  continual  seeing  of  the 
unseen,  a  continual  passing  through  the  sensible  to  the  super¬ 
sensible.1  To  the  scientist  the  objects  observed  in  nature  are 
always  signs  and  symbols  by  which  he  penetrates  to  its  secret. 

In  receiving  the  revelation  of  any  object,  the  mind  is  active 
both  in  immediate  perception  and  in  reflective  thought.  It  can¬ 
not  stop  in  the  sensations  and  impressions  subjective  in  the  con¬ 
sciousness,  but  through  them  perceives  the  object  which  is  re¬ 
vealing  itself.  And  the  mind  cannot  stop  with  the  percdved 
objects  ;  but  by  reflective  thought  it  reads  in  them  th  retentional 
1  Philosophical  Basis  of  Theism,  pp.  415-41j^i$i£b 


60 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


principles,  laws  and  ends,  in  accordance  with  which  they  are  con¬ 
stituted,  ordered  and  reciprocally  related  in  the  unity  of  a  scien¬ 
tific  system.  Man  is  the  interpreter  of  nature  ;  it  is  scarcely  a 
figure  of  speech  when  we  speak  of  reading  the  book  of  nature. 
All  science  is  like  deciphering  an  inscription.  The  theist  be¬ 
lieves  it  to  be  an  inscription  written  by  the  finger  of  God.  Thus 
in  all  his  knowing  man  exercises  the  power  of  looking  through 
the  visible  and  seeing  the  invisible,  of  looking  through  the  sensi¬ 
ble  and  the  natural  and  seeing  the  supersensible  and  the  super¬ 
natural. 

In  like  manner  man’s  mind  is  active  in  receiving  and  inter¬ 
preting  the  revelations  of  God. 

It  follows  that  it  is  possible  to  communicate  knowledge  by 
revelation,  only  to  a  mind  endowed  with  powers  competent  to 
perceive  and  apprehend  the  object  revealed.  Light  gives  no 
vision  where  there  is  no  eye  ;  undulations  of  air  give  no  sound 
where  there  is  no  ear ;  sensation  gives  no  perception  where  there 
is  no  perceiving  mind ;  persons  with  their  spiritual  qualities 
remain  unknown  when  there  is  no  personal  and  spritual  power 
to  apprehend  them. 

It  also  follows  that  a  revelation  cannot  be  made  to  a  being 
that  is  passive.  All  knowledge,  however  communicated,  is  the 
act  of  a  mind  knowing. 

And  further,  the  knowledge  of  an  object  revealed  cannot  be 
imparted  complete  in  the  single  act  of  revelation.  When  an 
object  is  revealed  to  the  mind,  it  remains  for  the  mind  by  its 
reaction  on  it  to  perceive  what  it  is,  and  to  investigate  what  are 
its  peculiarities  and  relations,  and  its  real  place  and  significance 
in  the  system  of  things.  If  it  is  only  an  ivory  die  which  we  have 
thrown  from  a  box,  which  we  can  take  up  in  our  fingers  and  sur¬ 
vey  on  every  side  in  a  moment,  yet,  if  we  would  ascertain  all 
that  may  be  known  about  it,  we  find  that  it  reveals  an  encyclo¬ 
paedia  of  knowledge.  The  u  open  secret  ”  of  the  earth  and  skies 
has  been  revealed  to  man  through  the  senses  every  day  and  night 
since  the  human  race  existed ;  yet  by  the  studies  of  all  genera¬ 
tions  man  has  not  attained  the  full  knowledge  of  them  and  their 
significance.  On  the  cross  Jesus  said,  “  It  is  finished,”  and  he 
bowed  his  head  and  gave  up  his  spirit.  The  action  of  his  earthly 
life  was  ended.  The  revelation  of  God  which  he  had  made  in  it 
was,  as  Jude  expresses  it,  “  once  for  all.”  But  all  who  trust  him 
learn  more  and  more,  all  their  lives  long,  of  the  love  of  God  to 
man  which  his  life  and  death  revealed,  and  are  always  more  and 


GOD  KNOWN  BY  HUMAN  THOUGHT, 


61 


more  able  “  to  apprehend  with  all  the  saints,  what  is  the  breadth 
and  length  and  height  and  depth,  and  to  know  the  love  of  Christ 
which  passeth  knowledge.”  From  his  crucifixion  until  now,  more 
thought  has  been  expended  on  him  in  Christian  countries  than  on 
any  other  single  object  of  learned  investigation.  But  the  studies 
of  all  these  generations  have  not  mastered  all  the  significance  of 
that  revelation  in  its  bearing  on  the  renovation  of  the  world,  nor 
attained  “unto  all  riches  of  the  fulness  of  understanding,  that 
they  may  know  the  mystery  of  God,  even  Christ,  in  whom  are 
all  the  treasures  of  wisdom  and  knowledge  hidden.”  We  may 
suppose  it  to  be  as  true  now  as  when  the  apostle  Peter  wrote, 
that  “  these  things  angels  desire  to  look  into.” 

And  in  this  necessity  of  the  reaction  of  the  mind  on  an  object 
revealed  in  order  that  the  revelation  may  give  any  knowledge,  we 
see  that  the  action  of  human  reason  is  necessary,  both  in  receiv¬ 
ing  a  divine  revelation  and  in  interpreting  its  meaning.  A  reve¬ 
lation  is  utterly  nugatory  except  as  human  reason  receives  and 
apprehends  and  interprets  it. 

The  three  factors  of  the  knowledge  of  God  are  divine  revela¬ 
tion,  religious  experience  or  the  consciousness  of  God  as  revealed, 
and  the  reaction  of  the  mind  in  spiritual  perception  and  reflective 
thought. 

2.  The  action  of  the  mind,  apprehending  and  interpreting  the 
revelation  by  thought,  is  as  follows  :  — 

The  man  must  begin  with  defining  in  his  own  mind  what  idea 
he  really  has  of  the  divinity  that  is  the  object  of  his  worship. 
He  finds  himself  believing  in  the  existence  of  a  supernatural  and 
superhuman  being  and  worshiping  it.  He  thinks  he  has  had  ex¬ 
perience  of  its  presence  and  its  power.  He  may  think  he  has 
knowledge  of  many  such  beings.  As  he  reflects  on  these  sup¬ 
posed  experiences  and  this  spontaneous  belief,  he  forms  in  his 
mind  an  idea  of  what  the  divinity  that  he  worships  really  is,  in 
his  own  conception  of  it.  The  same  is  true  of  the  Christian  be¬ 
liever,  with  his  larger  knowledge  and  richer  experience.  He  also 
must  begin  his  investigations  by  defining  to  himself  what  he  sup¬ 
poses  the  God,  whom  he  worships,  is. 

The  next  step  will  be  to  ascertain  the  reasons  for  believing 
that  this  God  really  exists,  and  that  the  belief  is  real  knowledge. 
It  is  objected  that  the  existence  of  God  is  not  a  legitimate  object 
of  proof.  This  is  true  in  the  sense  that  the  idea  of  God  does  not 
arise  at  the  end  of  our  proofs,  but  at  the  beginning.  We  must 
have  an  idea  of  God,  before  we  investigate  the  reasons  for  believ- 


62 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


ing  that  he  exists.  The  objection  would  be  valid  also,  if  the  idea 
of  God  were  a  pure  creation  of  thought,  without  data  in  experi¬ 
ence,  either  in  presentative  or  rational  intuition,  giving  at  least 
the  elements  entering  into  the  idea.  If  the  reasoning  starts  with 
such  an  empty  idea,  it  can  only  issue  in  an  idea  equally  empty. 
But  the  mind  cannot  create  an  idea  empty  of  all  contents  given 
in  perceptive  or  rational  intuition.  And  in  this  case  the  inquirer 
starts  with  belief,  founded  on  experience,  in  the  existence  of  God, 
and  with  an  idea  of  God,  founded  on  that  belief,  all  the  ele¬ 
ments  of  which  are  given  in  intuition.  The  proof  that  God  ex¬ 
ists  is  simply  the  statement  of  the  reasons  why  we  believe  him 
to  exist ;  that  is,  of  the  evidence  on  which  the  belief  rests.  If 
there  can  be  no  proof  of  the  existence  of  God,  it  must  be  be¬ 
cause  there  is  no  evidence  of  his  existence  and  no  reason  for  be¬ 
lieving  it. 

Jacobi  maintains  that  the  existence  of  God  cannot  be  proved, 
because  to  prove  it  would  be  to  infer  it  from  something,  and  thus 
would  imply  God’s  dependence  on  that  from  which  his  existence 
is  inferred.  He  here  makes  the  monstrous  mistake  of  identifying 
the  logical  dependence  of  thought  with  the  causal  dependence  of 
concrete  reality.  He  also  assumes  that  an  inference  is  possible 
only  from  cause  to  effect,  never  from  effect  to  cause.  In  the 
latter  case  the  movement  of  thought  is  the  inverse  of  the  move¬ 
ment  of  the  causal  efficiency ;  in  the  actual  process  of  the  con¬ 
crete  reality  the  cause  precedes  the  effect ;  in  the  logical  process 
of  thought  the  knowledge  of  the  effect  precedes  the  knowledge  of 
the  cause.  Jacobi’s  objection  implies  that  to  infer  the  cause  from 
an  effect  would  prove  that  the  cause  is  dependent  on  the  effect. 
In  perceiving  rational  words  and  actions,  we  infer  the  existence 
of  a  rational  person;  but  that  does  not  imply  the  dependence  of 
the  person’s  existence  on  his  words  and  actions,  or  on  my  percep¬ 
tion  of  them.  So  from  what  one  knows  in  experience  and  ob¬ 
servation,  he  infers  the  being  of  God  ;  but  this  does  not  imply 
that  God’s  being  depends  on  what  is  thus  experienced  or  ob¬ 
served,  nor  on  the  inference  from  it.  The  same  is  true  of  other 
regulative  principles  of  reason.  In  reality  the  universal  is  before 
the  particular,  the  absolute  before  the  conditioned.  But  in  the 
process  of  human  thought,  the  particular  must  be  known  before 
the  universal,  the  conditioned  before  the  absolute.  In  the  par¬ 
ticular,  thought  finds  the  universal  revealed,  and  in  the  condi¬ 
tioned,  the  absolute.  Among  us  this  objection  of  Jacobi  still 
finds  utterance.  But  it  is  only  the  identification  of  the  world- 


GOD  KNOWN  BY  HUMAN  THOUGHT. 


63 


process  with  a  logic-process,  familiar  in  German  idealistic  and 
pantheistic  philosophy.1 

The  third  result  of  reflective  thought  on  the  revelation  of  God 
is  the  cleaving  of  the  idea  of  God  from  error,  the  supplying  of 
defects  and  the  gradual  development  of  it,  with  the  increase  of 
knowledge,  to  the  true  idea  of  the  one  God,  the  absolute  Reason, 
the  eternal  Spirit,  and  to  the  ascertaining  and  enunciating  of  all 
truth  respecting  God  and  his  relations  to  man  which  from  all 
sources  the  human  mind  can  attain.  This  is  doctrinal  theology  ; 
which  is  merely  the  highest  result,  so  far  as  attained  in  any  age, 
of  human  thought,  apprehending  and  defining  what  God  has  re¬ 
vealed  of  himself,  and  systemizing  it,  as  far  as  possible,  by  find¬ 
ing  its  harmony  with  itself  and  with  all  known  reality. 

We  all  remember  the  transition  from  our  infantile  idea  of  God 
to  the  grander  conceptions  of  mature  years.  We  have  all  expe¬ 
rienced  liberation  and  help  in  dropping  oppressive  conceptions  of 
God  derived  from  false  teaching,  or  from  our  own  misconceptions 
of  the  truth.  Every  mature  Christian  is  aware  of  the  greatening 
of  the  idea  of  God  as  he  increases  in  the  knowledge  of  him. 

The  same  is  true  of  the  progress  of  the  knowledge  of  God  in 
the  history  of  the  race.  In  animism  and  fetichism,  the  lowest 
forms  of  religion,  man  recognizes  an  invisible  and  supernatural 
power  in  every  natural  object.  As  his  knowledge  of  nature 
increases,  he  still  recognizes  the  invisible  and  supernatural,  but 
regards  it  as  resident  in  the  sun,  the  moon,  the  bright  and  all- 
embracing  heavens,  or  in  others  of  the  higher  powers  and  forms 
of  nature.  As  he  comes  to  know  the  natural  universe  as  a  Cos¬ 
mos  of  which  all  the  parts  are  in  unity  under  the  reign  of  law, 
he  still  finds,  in  and  above  all,  the  invisible  and  supernatural 
power,  but  knows  it  as  the  one  personal  God,  revealing  in  the 
universe  his  power,  wisdom  and  love.  At  last  through  God’s 

1  “  Always  and  necessarily  the  ground  of  proof  is  above  that  which  is  proved 
by  it.  The  former  includes  the  latter  under  itself.  From  the  former,  truth 
and  certainty  flow  on  what  is  to  be  proved  from  it;  the  latter  holds  its  reality 
from  the  former.” 

This  is  true  only  on  the  assumption  of  the  formal  logic,  that  the  only  reason¬ 
ing  is  the  syllogistic  distribution  of  the  contents  of  a  general  notion  already 
formed  and  named.  It  entirely  excludes  induction,  on  which  science  rests, 
both  in  its  Baconian  form  of  inferring  the  universal  from  particulars,  and  in 
its  Newtonian  form  of  inferring  the  cause  from  an  effect.  It  is  a  confounding 
of  words  with  things  not  surpassed  by  that  of  a  half-civilized  oriental  monarch, 
who,  having  received  the  present  of  a  coach,  ordered  the  driver’s  seat  to  be 
lowered  before  he  would  ride  in  it ;  because  otherwise  the  coachman  would  be 
“  above  ”  the  king. 

O 


64 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD 


more  complete  revelation  of  himself  in  human  history  through 
Christ,  man,  still  retaining  the  primitive  knowledge  of  the  super¬ 
sensible  and  the  supernatural,  and  of  all  by  which  it  had  been 
enriched  in  his  progress  to  monotheism,  now  attains  his  highest 
and  most  inspiring  conception  of  God  as  the  redeemer  of  men 
from  sin. 

It  is  in  this  process  of  apprehending  and  interpreting  the  rev¬ 
elation  in  thought  and  defining  the  idea  of  God  as  revealed,  that 
mistakes  are  made,  and,  in  the  various  stages  of  human  develop¬ 
ment,  different  and  sometimes  fantastic  ideas  of  God  arise.  In 
the  early  missions  to  the  Canadian  Indians,  the  Jesuits  found 
that  they  already  had  some  idea  of  God.  In  explaining  to  them 
that  God  punishes  the  wicked,  they  said  :  u  When  you  capture 
your  enemies  you  torture  and  burn  them  ;  God  does  the  same  to 
his  enemies.”  This  produced  a  powerful  impression.  But  so  far 
as  it  led  them  to  think  God’s  justice  to  be  the  same  with  their 
revenge  and  ferocious  cruelty,  they  might  better  have  been  left 
to  work  out  their  idea  of  God  themselves. 

The  fact  that  men  form  erroneous  conceptions  of  the  divin¬ 
ity  and  that  this  conception  varies  in  different  ages  and  nations, 
is  no  argument  against  the  reality  of  his  existence.  In  the 
first  place,  because  there  are  elements  of  reality  which  persist 
through  all  these  diverse  and  changing  conceptions.  In  all  of 
them  is  some  sense  of  the  infinite.  In  all  of  them  is  the  con¬ 
sciousness,  more  or  less  clear,  of  the  presence  of  a  supernatural 
and  superhuman  power ;  a  power  invisible,  like  the  invisible 
mind  of  man,  manifesting  itself  in  effects  inexplicable  to  the  ob¬ 
server  by  aught  which  he  has  known  of  the  powers  either  of 
nature  or  of  man.  It  is  contrary  to  all  observed  facts  in  the  his¬ 
tory  of  the  uncivilized  races,  to  say  that  the  idea  of  spirit  or 
of  the  supernatural  is  of  late  origin  or  of  difficult  attainment. 
Man’s  consciousness  of  himself  in  his  own  individuality  and  iden¬ 
tity  is  so  strong,  from  our  earliest  knowledge  of  him,  that  he 
believes  that  death  itself  does  not  interrupt  the  continuity  of 
his  existence.  Far  from  being  in  the  beginning  a  materialist 
and  believing  only  in  what  he  can  see  and  handle,  he  is  so  con¬ 
scious  of  the  invisible  and  intangible  powers  of  his  own  mind, 
that  at  first  he  believes  that  ever}''  object  in  nature  is  animated 
by  a  mind  like  his  own.  Hence  when  a  person  dies  the  surviv¬ 
ors  believe,  not  only  that  his  spirit  passes  into  the  unseen  land, 
but  that  the  horse  sacrificed  at  his  grave,  and  the  food  and  weap¬ 
ons  deposited  in  it,  pass  thither  with  him  as  the  phantom  or 


GOD  KNOWN  BY  HUMAN  THOUGHT. 


65 


spirit  of  the  horse  or  food  or  weapon.  It  is  this  unseen,  spirit¬ 
ual,  supernatural  power,  like  his  own  unseen  thought  and  will 
and  yet  above  and  beyond  him,  which  the  uncivilized  man  be¬ 
lieves  to  exist  and  which  he  worships  as  a  divinity.  And  this 
idea  persists  at  the  basis  of  all  the  forms  in  which  he  represents 
his  divinity  in  his  thought.  His  conception  of  it  is  purified,  cor¬ 
rected  and  developed  only  in  his  progress  in  knowledge  and 
civilization  from  age  to  age.  So  Schweitzer  says:  “  It  is  indu¬ 
bitable  that  the  human  mind  has  from  the  earliest  times  wor¬ 
shiped  the  reality  hidden  behind  phenomena,  but  consciously  felt 
in  the  heart,  and  has  ascribed  to  it  greater  analogy  with  ideas 
than  with  matter  and  force.”  1 

Feuerbach  raises  an  objection  against  theism  from  the  fact 
that  in  the  ethnic  religions  the  gods  are  supposed  to  reveal  them¬ 
selves  to  men,  and  that  Cicero  and  other  non-christian  writers 
used  arguments  for  the  reality  of  the  objects  of  pagan  faith  vir¬ 
tually  the  same  as  those  urged  in  the  present  day  for  the  ob¬ 
jects  of  Christian  belief.2  But  this  objection  is  without  validity 
because  the  spiritual,  the  supernatural  and  the  superhuman  are 
always  elements  in  the  pagan’s  divinity,  as  really  as  in  the 
Christian’s ;  in  whatever  form  the  pagan  conceives  it  in  his  im¬ 
agination,  it  is  always  a  supernatural  and  spiritual  power,  like 
his  own  unseen  thought  and  will,  yet  mightier  than  himself,  that 
is  revealed,  and  whose  existence  and  agency  among  men  the  eth¬ 
nic  philosophers  adduce  arguments  to  prove.  There  is  always 
some  sense  of  the  spiritual,  the  supernatural,  the  infinite.  These 
are  fundamental  elements  in  the  highest  idea  of  a  divinity  ;  if 
the  pagan  found  the  same  evidence  of  the  existence  of  such  a 
being  as  the  Christian  finds,  it  is  because  to  that  extent  he  had 
a  true  idea  of  the  deity. 

And  when  men  have  begun  to  adduce  proofs  that  there  is  a 
God,  they  have  already  begun  to  be  civilized  and  are  leaving 
the  puerilities  of  heathen  mythology  behind.  Anaxagoras,  So¬ 
crates,  Plato,  Aristotle,  Cicero  were  not  trying  to  prove  that  the 
fables  of  heathen  mythology  were  true,  nor  that  the  idols  of  the 
heathen  were  the  true  God. 

In  the  second  place,  in  attaining  the  knowledge  of  the  uni¬ 
verse,  as  really  as  of  God,  men  have  fallen  into  gross  mistakes 
and  have  advanced  to  larger  and  more  correct  ideas  only  by  toil¬ 
some  progress  through  the  centuries.  If  this  discredits  our 

1  Schweitzer;  Zukunft  der  Religion,  page  94. 

2  Feuerbach  ;  Wesen  des  Christenthums,  chap.  xxi. 

5 


66 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


knowledge  of  God,  it  equally  discredits  all  physical  science.  In 
the  progress  of  knowledge  in  every  sphere  there  is  always  a  nu¬ 
cleus  of  real  knowledge  in  a  penumbra  of  obscurity.  In  the 
gradual  development  of  the  human  mind  and  the  progress  of  cul¬ 
ture  and  knowledge,  the  nucleus  of  knowledge  persists  while  it  is 
progressively  enlarged,  extending  its  area  of  light  into  the  ob¬ 
scurity  around  it.  It  is  incidental  to  this  progress  that  there 
be  errors  and  defects,  doubt,  criticism  and  new  investigation, 
and  thus  the  correction,  clearing  and  enlarging  of  the  field  of 
knowledge.  So  in  the  progress  of  man’s  knowledge  of  God  there 
has  been  a  persistent  nucleus  of  real  knowledge,  gradually  en¬ 
larging  its  area  of  light  into  the  penumbra  of  obscurity,  and  the 
defects  and  mistakes  attending  it  have  been  only  such  as  are 
incidental  to  the  progress  of  all  knowledge. 

3.  Because  a  revelation  of  God  imparts  knowledge  only  as  the 
man  receives  it  in  his  own  nctive  intelligence,  it  follows  that, 
however  he  reveals  himself,  the  knowledge  of  God  must  be  pro¬ 
gressive.  The  knowledge  imparted  by  the  revelation  must  de¬ 
pend  on  the  degree  to  which  the  man’s  receptivity  for  it  has  been 
developed  by  his  own  culture  and  growth.  This  is  not  a  pecu¬ 
liarity  of  the  knowledge  of  God,  but  is  equally  characteristic  of 
knowledge  in  every  sphere. 

What  any  one  finds  revealed  in  any  object  depends  not  merelv 
on  the  keenness  of  his  sense-perception,  but  also  on  his  range  of 
knowledge,  the  power  of  his  intellect,  the  clearness  of  his  spirit¬ 
ual  vision,  and  his  varied  susceptibilities  to  impression.  When 
Peter  Bell  was  the  observer, 

“  A  primrose  by  a  river’s  brim 
A  yellow  primrose  was  to  him, 

And  it  was  nothing:  more.” 

This  is  precisely  what  is  now  praised  by  many  as  the  real  and 
only  true  view  of  the  world.  It  is  a  grasp  of  the  bare  facts  re¬ 
vealed  to  the  senses,  and  it  is  nothing  more.  Yet  almost  every 
one  does  see  something  more,  and  probably  each  one  sees  some¬ 
thing  not  perceived  by  the  others.  Suppose  a  tract  of  land  with 
a  stream  running  through  it,  and  hills  and  forests  in  the  back¬ 
ground.  A  farmer  sees  in  it  its  capacity  for  the  growth  of  wheat 
and  grass.  A  civil  engineer  sees  in  it  mill -sites,  and  already 
seems  to  hear  the  clatter  of  machinery,  and  the  bustle  of  a  busy 
city.  A  sportsman  sees  a  run  for  game  and  a  chance  for  trout. 
A  geologist  reads  in  it  a  history  of  the  construction  of  the  earth. 
A  painter  sees  in  it  beauty  which,  could  he  transfer  it  to  the 


GOD  KNOWN  BY  HUMAN  THOUGHT. 


67 


canvas,  would  be  a  joy  forever.  A  Christian  sees  in  it  the  out¬ 
shining  of  the  glory  of  God.  A  savage  and  an  astronomer  look 
on  the  same  starry  sky ;  the  former  sees  only  a  blue  expanse 
with  innumerable  shining  spangles ;  the  latter  sees  the  depths  of 
space,  immeasurable  magnitudes  and  distances,  suns  and  sys¬ 
tems,  the  universal  reign  of  law.  The  “  something  more  ”  each 
one  sees  is  a  reality  not  less  than  the  bare  fact  of  sense  grasped 
by  Peter  Bell.  George  Herbert  says :  “  Man  is  one  world  and 
has  another  to  attend  him.”  Rather  he  has  as  many  worlds  to 
attend  him  as  the  spheres  of  knowledge  which  his  mind  has  en¬ 
tered.  And  they  are  not  worlds  created  by  his  own  fancy  but 
are  real.  For  the  universe  is  the  expression  of  the  endlessly 
varied  richness  and  fulness  of  the  thought  and  love  of  God.  That 
is  the  truly  realistic  view  of  the  world  which  knows  it  in  its 
deepest  reality  and  significance,  in  its  relation  to  God.  Every 
ascending  step  in  a  man’s  culture  and  development  opens  to  his 
vision  a  new  world.  So  the  knowledge  which  a  man  receives 
from  any  revelation  of  God,  depends  on  the  receptivity  and  ca¬ 
pacity  of  the  man.  As  in  his  progress  his  spiritual  capacity  and 
receptivity  are  enlarged,  he  sees  new  significance  in  the  revela¬ 
tion  ;  in  it  new  vistas  of  the  divine  glory  open  to  his  view.  His 
own  progressive  growth  and  development  become  the  Jacob’s 
ladder  by  which  he  ascends  from  height  to  height  of  knowledge, 
with  ever  widening  prospect,  till  he  comes  to  the  open  heavens 
and  the  presence  and  vision  of  God. 

A  little  girl  once  said  she  supposed  the  stars  were  holes  in  the 
sky  to  let  God’s  glory  through.  In  her  infantile  mind  she  was 
creating  myths,  as  full-grown  men  were  creating  them  in  the  in¬ 
fancy  of  the  race.  The  progress  in  the  knowledge  of  God  from 
the  conception  of  him  held  by  the  little  child  and  by  the  infantile 
man  to  the  sublime  idea  of  God  as  the  all-powerful  Spirit  of 
wisdom  and  love,  is  hardly  greater  than  the  progress  of  the 
knowledge  of  the  starry  heaven  from  the  conception  of  children 
and  savages  to  the  knowledge  of  a  modern  astronomer.  The 
starry  heaven  in  which  the  astronomy  is  discovered  has  spread 
itself  alike  before  the  eyes  of  the  infantile  man  and  of  the  as¬ 
tronomer  ;  that  the  latter  sees  in  it  immeasurably  more  than 
the  former  is  due  to  his  own  enlarged  receptivity  and  capacity. 
So  in  the  constitution  and  course  of  nature,  and  in  the  constitu¬ 
tion  and  conscious  experience  of  man  is  a  primitive  revelation 
of  God,  both  to  the  savage  and  the  philosopher.  It  is  the  greater 
culture  and  growth  of  the  one  which  enables  him  to  see  more  in 
it  than  the  other. 


68 


THE  SELF-RE YELATION  OF  GOD. 


It  follows  also  that  the  higher  revelations  of  God  must  be  de¬ 
layed  till  man  becomes  competent  to  receive  them.  A  child  can¬ 
not  be  taught  to  solve  problems  in  proportion  and  computing  in¬ 
terest  before  it  has  learned  addition.  It  is  impossible  to  reveal 
the  principle  and  construction  of  an  electric  telegraph  or  a  steam- 
engine  to  the  lowest  savages.  A  caligraph  or  a  sewing-machine 
would  be  useless  presents  to  them,  for  they  could  not  use  them. 
A  missionary  in  Africa  imported  a  plough  and  took  great  pains 
'  to  teach  some  of  the  natives  to  use  it.  But  when  he  next  visited 
them  he  found  that,  instead  of  using  it,  they  had  set  it  on  end, 
daubed  it  with  red  paint  and  were  worshiping  it.  Mechanical 
inventions  are  useless  to  man  till  he  has  made  such  progress  as 
to  need  them.  It  is  not  uncommon  when  a  machine  is  invented 
to  find  that  a  similar  invention  had  been  made  generations  be¬ 
fore  and  had  been  neglected  and  forgotten.  In  like  manner 
God’s  revelation  must  adapt  itself  to  the  receptivity  of  the  peo¬ 
ple,  and  consequently  must  be  progressive.  Missionaries  to  sav¬ 
age  tribes  find  difficulty  in  communicating  to  them  the  Christian 
ideas  of  spiritual  purity  and  holiness.  In  this  progressive  way 
the  revelation  recorded  in  the  Christian  Scriptures  was  in  fact 
made.  When  the  Israelites  escaped  from  Egypt,  it  was  only  by 
a  long  process  and  patient  painstaking  that  the  molds  of  thought, 
which  had  been  wrought  into  them  by  heathenism  and  slavery, 
and  which  long  continued  to  receive  into  themselves  and  give 
their  own  shape  to  the  monotheistic  teachings  of  their  leaders  and 
prophets,  were  broken  up.  It  was  necessary  to  delay  the  reve¬ 
lation  of  truths  and  of  applications  of  truth  which  transcended 
their  capacity  of  reception,  till  they  should  be  educated  and  de¬ 
veloped  to  a  capacity  of  receiving  without  transmuting  and  de¬ 
basing  them.  Hence  the  elements  of  a  higher  revelation  had  to 
be  taught  to  their  gross  and  debauched  minds  by  restrictions  and 
requirements,  by  symbols  and  types,  by  forms  and  ceremonies, 
which,  as  they  accomplished  their  design,  were  to  make  them¬ 
selves  useless  and  to  pass  away.  On  the  same  principle  our  Lord 
said  to  his  disciples,  “  I  have  yet  many  things  to  say  to  you,  but 
ye  cannot  bear  them  now.”  Accordingly  the  coming  of  our  Lord 
himself  was  delayed  till  by  various  and  long  continued  prepara¬ 
tory  agencies  the  world  was,  in  the  fulness  of  time,  in  condition 
to  receive  the  new  revelation,  and,  instead  of  the  hand-leading 
and  schooling  of  the  Old  Testament,  could  be  left  to  the  guid¬ 
ance  of  the  invisible  Spirit  of  God  sent  from  Christ  and  “  poured 
out  upon  all  flesh.” 


GOD  KNOWN  BY  HUMAN  THOUGHT. 


69 


4.  The  fact  that  revelation  imparts  no  knowledge  without  the 
action  of  man’s  mind  receiving  and  interpreting  it,  throws  light 
on  the  course  of  God’s  revelation  of  himself  recorded  in  the 
Bible ;  it  corrects  some  misapprehensions  and  exposes  the  un¬ 
reasonableness  of  some  objections. 

God  cannot  reveal  himself  immediately  to  the  senses.  It  is 
sometimes  asked  why  God  does  not  reveal  himself  more  plainly, 
so  that  we  cannot  doubt.  This  complaint  searched  to  the  bottom 
will  often  be  found  to  involve  a  demand  that  God  should  reveal 
himself  to  the  senses.  Bnt  God  is  a  Spirit  and  as  such  cannot 
reveal  himself  immediately  to  the  senses,  but  only  to  the  spirit 
in  man.  “  No  man  hath  seen  God  at  any  time.”  God  can  re¬ 
veal  himself  through  physical  effects  only  as  media  through 
which  the  rational  spirit  of  man  perceives  the  present  God ;  only 
as  signs  or  symbols  through  which  the  human  mind  reads  the 
thought  of  God. 

We  see  also  that  God’s  revelation  of  himself  must  be  adapted 
to  the  development  and  culture  of  those  to  whom  it  is  made.  It 
may  be  through  types  and  symbols,  through  forms  and  institu¬ 
tions,  which  are  to  pass  away  when  once  man  is  educated  to  the 
knowledge  of  God  as  the  one  absolute  Spirit ;  or  in  historical  acts 
and  jprophetic  inspiration  which,  while  revealing  God  in  some 
important  particular,  carry  the  thought  forward  in  the  expecta¬ 
tion  of  a  greater  revelation  in  the  future. 

Consider,  for  example,  some  of  the  revelations  of  the  Old  Tes¬ 
tament.1  On  a  critical  emergency  in  the  journey  of  Israel 
through  the  wilderness,  Moses  prayed  :  “  I  beseech  thee,  show 
me  thy  glory.”  On  the  next  morning,  on  the  heights  of  Sinai, 
his  prayer  was  answered,  and  the  glory  of  Jehovah  passed  by  be¬ 
fore  him.  But  Moses  was  hidden  in  a  cleft  of  the  rock  and  saw 
nothing,  for  God  had  said,  “Thou  shalt  not  see  my  face;”  he 

1  Learned  men  are  enthusiastically  and  laboriously  studying  the  ethnic 
myths  and  communicating  their  results  as  of  the  highest  importance.  Profes¬ 
sor  De  Gubernatis  tells  us  in  his  Zoological  Mythology  that  the  milkmaid 
with  her  pail  of  milk  on  her  head  meant  “that  little  pipkin  the  moon,”  and 
that  the  two  ass-ears  of  Midas  meant  the  morning  dawn  and  the  evening  twi¬ 
light,  “  whose  changeableness  the  mobility  of  the  ears  of  an  ass  must  have 
served  very  well  to  express.”  While  researches  and  conclusions  like  these 
are  lauded  as  learned  and  valuable  contributions  to  science,  it  is  not  uncom¬ 
mon  to  hear  or  read  sneers  at  the  theophanies  of  the  Old  Testament  as  pue¬ 
rile  and  unworthy  of  scientific  attention.  But  whoever  studies  them  in  any 
real  sympathy  with  the  spirit  of  the  Old  Testament  and  its  religion,  will  find 
in  them  monotheistic  truths  of  rich,  varied  and  profound  significance  immeas¬ 
urably  in  advance  of  the  ethnic  myths. 


70 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


heard  only  a  voice  which  proclaimed  the  memorial  name,  Jeho¬ 
vah,  signifying  the  covenant-God  of  Israel ;  the  name,  El,  the 
Mighty  ;  and  the  spiritual  and  moral  attributes  of  mercy  and 
grace,  of  goodness  and  long-suffering,  of  truth  and  righteousness. 
And  Moses  saw  the  retreating  glory  and  fell  on  his  face  and  wor¬ 
shiped.1  Thus  was  it  revealed  to  him  that  God  is  spirit ;  that 
he  cannot  be  revealed  directly  to  the  senses ;  that  his  glory  con¬ 
sists  in  those  spiritual  and  moral  attributes  and  powers  which 
spiritual  and  moral  beings  alone  can  know.  The  same  was  the 
significance  of  the  Holy  of  Holies  in  the  tabernacle  and  the  tem¬ 
ple.  There  was  the  mercy-seat  where  God  revealed  his  grace  to 
men  ;  but  it  was  hidden  by  a  veil  behind  which  no  eye  might 
look ;  it  was  in  a  solitude  into  which  no  man  entered  except  the 
high-priest ;  and  he,  but  once  a  year  and  then  bearing  the  blood 
of  the  sacrifice  of  atonement  for  himself  and  the  people.  There 
God  dwelt  in  the  solitude  of  his  own  invisible  and  spiritual  be¬ 
ing.  And  this  was  a  continual  teaching  to  the  Israelites  that 
God  is  a  spirit ;  that  what  reveals  him  to  the  sense  is  itself  a  veil 
which  hides  him  ;  that  he  can  be  represented  by  no  image  and 
worshiped  under  no  visible  form ;  that  the  material  universe, 
while  as  the  work  of  his  hands  it  reveals  him,  is  itself  also  a 
veil  which  hides  him.  No  symbol  can  be  conceived  more  effec¬ 
tive  to  impress  on  a  rude  people  the  fatuity  of  idol- worship,  and 
to  teach  them  at  every  entrance  into  the  temple  that  God  is  a 
spirit  and  that  they  who  worship  him  must  worship  him  in  spirit 
and  in  truth. 

Persons  sometimes  imagine  that  if  God  had  revealed  himself 
continually  and  to  all  men  by  working  miracles  before  them,  it 
would  have  been  impossible  to  doubt  his  existence.  But  mira¬ 
cles  are  presented  to  the  senses  and  therefore,  like  the  familiar 
works  of  nature,  are  a  veil  which  hides  God  while  revealing  him ; 
the  mind  must  pass  through  them,  just  as  it  passes  through  the 
sensible  phenomena  of  nature,  to  the  God  unseen  and  spiritual 
behind  the  veil.  And  if  miracles  were  as  common  as  summer 
showers  and  rainbows,  they  would  attract  no  more  attention  than 
they.  It  is  sometimes  thought  that  if  God  should  habitually  re¬ 
veal  himself  in  theophanies  such  as  the  Bible  records,  doubt 
would  be  no  longer  possible.  But  even  in  the  theophanies  the 
prophets  did  not  see  God ;  they  saw  only  signs  and  symbols 
through  which  their  spiritual  eyes  saw  what  can  be  only  spiritu¬ 
ally  discerned.  Ezekiel  saw  a  cloud  coming  out  of  the  north 

1  Exod.  xxxiii.,  xxxiv. 


GOD  KNOWN  BY  HUMAN  THOUGHT. 


71 


with  whirlwind  and  with  infolding  fire  and  flashing  lightning ; 
and  from  its  amber  brightness  a  crystal  firmament  evolved  borne 
on  four  Cherubim,  with  wheels  of  beryl  so  high  that  they  were 
dreadful,  and  all  moving  with  flashing  light  and,  to  the  very 
wheels,  instinct  with  the  spirit  of  life.  On  the  firmament  was  a 
sapphire  throne,  and  on  the  throne  the  appearance  of  a  man. 
But  if  that  vision  should  rise  on  our  view  every  morning  from 
the  north,  wherein  would  that  miniature  firmament  reveal  God 
any  more  than  the  sun  which  rises  every  morning  in  the  east,  or 
the  firmament  with  its  thousands  of  stars  which  wheels  majesti¬ 
cally  above  us  every  night  ?  What  theophany  presented  to  the 
senses  can  open  to  view  such  energies,  such  swiftness  of  motion, 
such  greatness  and  such  fineness  of  being,  such  grand  and  har¬ 
monious  systems,  such  powers  instinct  with  the  spirit  of  life,  such 
manifestations  of  reason,  such  manifestations  of  God,  as  science 
is  disclosing  in  the  physical  universe  itself? 

We  discover  also  a  certain  limitation  in  the  nature  of  things  to 
the  revelation  of  God  through  words.  Some  may  think  it  would 
be  a  great  help  to  faith  if  “  GOD  IS  LOVE  ”  were  written  across 
the  sky  in  letters  of  stars.  We  might  ask  in  what  language  it 
should  be  written,  and  might  suggest  that  such  an  arrangement 
would  imply  that  the  earth  is  the  centre  of  the  universe,  and  that 
all  other  worlds  exist  for  it.  But  were  the  words  written  thus, 
it  would  still  be  only  an  orderly  arrangement  of  the  stars  through 
which  the  mind  must  look  to  read  its  significance ;  and  orderly 
arrangements  we  see  everywhere  in  nature.  And  how  immeas¬ 
urably  more  significant  the  revelation  of  his  love,  which  God  has 
made  in  the  life  and  self-sacrificing  love  of  Jesus  the  Christ. 

God  reveals  himself  by  words,  as  people  of  all  religions  are 
wont  to  believe.  Persons,  who  have  had  rich  experience  of  his 
grace,  and  by  intimacy  with  him  have  had  spiritual  reality  opened 
to  their  thought  and  life,  testify  of  what  they  have  known  ;  and 
in  a  still  higher  degree  prophets  and  apostles  have  been  inspired 
to  declare  the  truth  of  God.  We  have  seen  that  a  woman  can¬ 
not  reveal  to  her  child  what  she  is  as  mother  by  words,  until  she 
has  revealed  herself  in  the  action  of  a  mother’s  love.  So  the 
words  of  prophets  and  apostles  fall  without  significance  on  the 
ear,  until  God  by  his  divine  action  has  disclosed  their  meaning. 
The  hearer  must  first  know  God  by  his  own  experience  of  God’s 
grace,  or  by  his  knowledge  of  God’s  action  in  nature,  or  in  human 
history,  or  above  all  in  Christ,  in  order  to  understand  the  prophet’s 
communication. 


72 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


Feuerbach  objects  to  a  revelation  of  God  that  it  must  be  “  a 
determinate  revelation  given  at  a  particular  epoch  ;  God  revealed 
himself  once  for  all  in  the  year  so  and  so,  and  that,  not  to  uni¬ 
versal  man,  to  the  men  of  all  times  and  places,  to  the  reason,  to 
the  species,  but  to  certain  individuals.”  1 

The  revelation  of  God  in  the  broader  a«d  deeper  meaning  of 
the  word  is  a  revelation  by  ,the  divine  action,  and  goes  on  in 
all  places  and  all  times  ;  while  special  revelations  at  particular 
times  or  to  particular  persons  are  not  ^excluded.  The  revelation 
culminating  in  Christ  as  recorded  in  the  Bible  had  been  progres¬ 
sive  in  its  preparatory  stages  through  all  preceding  human  his¬ 
tory,  and  is  perpetuated  and  made  universal  in  the  Christian 
Scriptures  and  church,  and  in  the  Holy  Spirit  poured  on  all  flesh 
and  abiding  forever. 

5.  This  discussion  of  man’s  reception  of  revelation  gives  the 
true  significance  of  the  common  sayings,  that  man  in  his  own  self- 
consciousness  finds  the  consciousness  of  God ;  that  his  conscious¬ 
ness  of  self,  unfolded  into  its  full  significance,  contains  the  con¬ 
sciousness  of  God  ;  that  the  consciousness  of  God  is  in  the  back¬ 
ground  of  self-consciousness.  It  is  only  as  a  man  knows  God 
and  his  relation  to  him,  that  he  becomes  aware  of  his  own 
highest  capacities  and  powers.  Conversely,  his  consciousness  of 
his  own  highest  capacities  and  powers  carries  in  it  the  con¬ 
sciousness  of  God.  The  outward  world  acting  on  the  sensorium 
reveals  itself  in  the  consciousness.  But  in  the  consciousness  of 
the  outward  world,  man  knows  himself  as  perceiving  it,  living 
in  it,  acting  on  it ;  he  knows  himself  in  all  his  susceptibilities 
and  powers  as  related  to  the  material  world  ;  and  he  could  never 
have  known  himself  thus  if  the  world  had  not  revealed  itself  by 
acting  on  his  sensorium.  In  an  analogous  way  God  acting  on 
man’s  spirit  reveals  himself  in  the  man’s  consciousness,  and  at 
the  same  time  the  man  is  revealed  to  himself  ;  he  knows  himself 
as  knowing  God,  living  in  his  presence,  acting  in  relation  to 
him  ;  he  could  never  have  known  himself  thus,  if  God  had  not 
revealed  himself  in  his  consciousness.  Hence  we  may  truly  say 
that  in  knowing  himself,  in  unfolding  the  full  significance  of  his 
self-consciousness,  the  man  knows  the  outward  world  ;  and  that  in 
knowing  himself,  in  unfolding  the  full  significance  of  his  own 
self-consciousness,  he  knows  God.  And  we  may  truly  say  that 
the  consciousness  of  the  outward  world,  and  the  consciousness  of 
God  are  each  in  the  background  of  man’s  consciousness  of  him- 
1  Wesen  ties  Cliristenthums,  chap.  xxi.  Trans,  p.  209. 


GOD  KNOWN  BY  HUMAN  THOUGHT. 


73 


self.  In  this  sense  Clement  of  Alexandria  says  :  “  Tlie  noblest 
and  greatest  knowledge  is  to  know  one’s  self  ;  for  if  any  one 
knows  himself  he  will  know  God.”  1 

Thus  these  sayings  are  cleared  from  a  pantheistic  meaning. 
They  do  not  imply  that  man’s  consciousness  of  himself  is  his 
consciousness  of  God,  and  is  in  reality  God’s  only  consciousness 
of  himself.  This  is  implied  in  Biedermann’s  definition  :  “  Im¬ 
mediate  revelation  is  an  act  of  God  whose  content  is  at  the 
same  time  content  of  a  subjective  spiritual  act  of  man.”  2  Feuer¬ 
bach  puts  it  plainly :  “  The  antithesis  of  the  divine  and  the  hu¬ 
man  is  altogether  illusory  ;  it  is  nothing  else  than  the  antithesis 
between  the  human  nature  in  general  and  the  human  individual. 
Religion,  at  least  the  Christian  religion,  is  the  relation  of  man  to 
himself,  or  more  correctly  to  his  own  nature  ;  but  a  relation  to 
it  viewed  as  a  nature  (  Wesen )  apart  from  his  own.  The  divine 
being  is  nothing  else  than  the  human  being,  or  rather  the  human 
nature  purified,  freed  from  the  limits  of  the  individual  man,  made 
objective,  that  is,  contemplated  and  revered  as  another,  a  distinct 
being.”  3  The  words  of  Biedermann  may  be  explained  as  mean¬ 
ing  merely  that  the  man  receiving  the  revelation,  apprehends  in 
his  own  thought  the  same  contents  or  reality  which  God  reveals. 
But  one,  who  claims  to  be  a  Christian  theologian,  ought  to  write 
at  least  clearly  enough  to  show  without  ambiguity  which,  of  two 
systems  so  widely  apart  as  theism  and  pantheism,  he  is  teaching. 

.  1  Pedagogus,  bk.  iii.  chap.  i. 

2  Christliche  Dogmatik,  p.  63. 

8  Wesen  des  Cliristenthums,  Einleitung,  §  2,  p.  20. 


CHAPTER  Y. 


MAN’S  CAPACITY  TO  RECEIVE  GOD’S  REVELATION  AND 

TO  KNOW  HIM  THROUGH  IT. 

Through  his  spiritual  susceptibilities  man  is  receptive  of  im¬ 
pressions  and  influence  from  God,  and  knows  him  as  thus  re¬ 
vealed  in  his  consciousness,  in  a  way  analogous  to  that  in  which 
he  knows  the  physical  world  and  his  fellow-men. 

In  the  broader  sense  of  the  word,  consciousness  is  both  subject¬ 
consciousness  and  object-consciousness.  Then  the  object  of  con¬ 
sciousness  may  be  an  object  of  sense,  or  a  man  in  his  personality, 
or  God,  as  they  severally  present  themselves. 

In  its  own  subjective  states  and  acts,  the  mind  in  self-con¬ 
sciousness  perceives  itself  as  the  one  identical  subject  of  them. 
In  its  object-consciousness  it  perceives  the  sensible  object,  which 
presents  or  reveals  itself  in  the  sensations.  When  a  person, 
by  words  or  deeds  affecting  the  sensorium,  makes  also  the  im¬ 
pression,  through  the  spiritual  susceptibilities,  of  rationality,  free¬ 
will,  love  or  other  personal  or  spiritual  properties,  the  mind, 
reacting,  perceives  not  only  the  body  through  the  sensations,  but 
also  the  rational,  free  personal  being  through  these  impressions 
of  reason  or  spirit.  The  man  perceives  the  Thou  as  well  as  the 
I.  And,  in  a  similar  way,  in  the  conscious  religious  impressions 
responsive  to  the  supernatural  and  the  infinite,  the  mind,  react¬ 
ing,  perceives  the  being  that  is  divine  revealing  himself  in  the 
consciousness. 

It  is  now  to  be  shown  that  man  has  capacity  to  receive  such 
revelations  of  God,  and  to  know  him  through  it. 

1.  The  possession  of  this  capacity  is  assumed  in  all  religions. 
In  this  we  have  the  testimony  of  mankind  to  their  common  belief 
that  they  have  and  exercise  this  capacity  to  receive  revelation 
of  a  divinity,  and  to  know  him  through  it.  It  is,  therefore,  the 
strongest  presumptive  evidence  that  this  is  a  capacity  of  the 
human  mind. 

If  the  object  of  the  religions  of  mankind  has  any  reality, 


MAN’S  CAPACITY  TO  RECEIVE  GOD’S  REVELATION.  75 


man  must  be  susceptible  of  receiving  revelation  from  God,  and 
capable  of  knowing  him  through  it.  All  religions  presuppose 
communication  between  God  and  man.  They  all  presuppose 
that  man  knows  God  in  experience  ;  that  God  reveals  himself 
by  some  action,  influence  or  impression  in  the  consciousness, 
and  that  man  knows  God  through  his  experience  of  the  effects 
of  this  action.  As  Hegel  says :  “  The  substance  of  religion 
cannot  be  brought  into  a  man  as  anything  new  ;  this  would  be 
as  preposterous  as  it  would  be  to  try  to  introduce  a  spirit  into 
a  dog  by  letting  him  gnaw  the  printed  Scriptures.”  1  If,  then, 
the  object  of  religion  has  reality,  there  must  be  in  man  what 
Jacobi  calls  the  “  Vernunftsinn,”  the  reason-sense,  the  suscepti¬ 
bility  of  the  spirit  to  impressions  and  influences  from  God  re¬ 
vealing  him  in  the  consciousness,  and  the  power  to  know  God 
through  this  revelation.  If  this  is  not  so,  then  all  religious  feel¬ 
ing,  belief  and  action  are  wholly  subjective  and  have  no  real 
object.  And  if  they  are  wholly  subjective,  all  the  religions  of 
the  world  have  been  and  are  sheer  illusions.  But  religion  is  a 
common  characteristic  of  humanity,  and  is  rooted  in  the  consti¬ 
tution  of  man.  If  all  the  beliefs,  feelings  and  actions  which  are 
essential  in  religion  are  sheer  illusions,  then  man’s  constitutional 
capacities  in  their  normal  exercise  are  discredited  as  untrust¬ 
worthy,  and  the  reality  of  all  human  knowledge  is  impugned. 
On  the  other  hand,  if  religion  is  not  an  illusion,  God,  as  the  ob¬ 
ject  of  it,  exists  and  reveals  himself  in  man’s  consciousness;  and 
man  is  constituted  with  spiritual  sensitivity  to  the  divine  action 
and  influence,  and  with  capacity  to  know  God  in  the  revelation 
which  he  makes. 

2.  The  reality  of  human  knowledge  and  the  true  conception  of 
man’s  powers  of  knowing  necessarily  imply  his  capacity  to  re¬ 
ceive  God’s  revelation  of  himself,  and  to  know  him  through  it. 
The  denial  of  this  capacity  can  be  justified  only  by  some  false 
theory,  logically  involving  the  denial  of  the  reality  and  possibil¬ 
ity  of  human  knowledge. 

The  essential  point  of  difficulty  as  to  the  reality  of  any  knowl¬ 
edge  is  at  the  transition  from  the  subjective  impression  to  the 
objective  reality.  This  difficulty,  however,  is  no  greater  in 
knowing  God  than  in  knowing  other  beings.  On  the  contrary, 
the  real  action  of  the  mind  in  this  transition  necessarily  implies 
the  existence  of  God  and  admits  of  no  reasonable  explanation 
without  it.  In  other  words,  the  existence  of  God  is  essential  to 
1  Hegel’s  Philosophic  der  Religion,  vol.  i.  p.  6. 


76 


THE  SELF-RE YELATION  OF  GOD. 


any  real  knowledge  which,  as  rational  and  scientific,  is  anything 
more  than  the  consciousness  and  recollection  of  the  impressions 
of  sense.  This  will  be  evident  from  the  following  considerations. 

Physical  science  rests  on  natural  realism.  It  assumes  with¬ 
out  question  the  reality  of  matter  and  motion,  of  masses,  mole¬ 
cules  and  ethers ;  of  force,  molar  and  molecular ;  of  all  reality 
presented  in  sense ;  of  extra-sensible  realities  inferred  from  ob¬ 
served  facts  ;  and  of  the  interaction  and  relations  of  all  these. 
It  assumes,  also,  the  laws  of  causation  and  of  the  uniformity  and 
continuity  of  nature,  the  axioms  of  mathematics,  and  other  first 
principles  of  reason,  which  are  regulative  of  all  thought.  It  jus¬ 
tifies  the  assumption  of  these  as  sustained  by  experience.  It  is 
found  by  experience  that  it  is  always  safe  to  reason  under  the 
regulation  of  these  principles,  and  thus  they  are  continually  re¬ 
ceiving  verification  from  observed  facts.  In  this  natural  realism, 
theism  is  in  entire  accord  with  physical  science. 

But  philosophy,  exploring  the  ultimate  grounds  of  things,  goes 
farther  than  physical  science  can  go.  It  recognizes  the  profounder 
truths  of  reason,  and  shows  the  grounds  of  natural  realism  in 
reason  itself.  It  thus  broadens  and  deepens  natural  realism  into 
what  may  properly  be  called  rational  realism.  In  this,  philosophy 
is  in  no  conflict  with  physical  science,  but  simply  presents  the 
rational  grounds  of  the  natural  realism  in  which  physical  science 
trusts  without  question.  We  thus  find  the  real  action  of  the 
mind  in  the  transition  from  the  subjective  impression  to  the  ob¬ 
jective  reality. 

Sense-perception  is  the  perception,  not  of  mere  subjective  sen¬ 
sations,  but  also  of  the  object  revealing  itself  in  them.  There 
can  be  no  sense-perception  unless  an  object  first  acts  on  us 
through  the  sensorium,  and  thus  reveals  itself  in  the  conscious¬ 
ness.  In  his  intellectual  reaction,  the  man  perceives  the  object 
revealed,  and  at  the  same  time  perceives  himself  as  the  percip¬ 
ient.  In  this  interaction  the  perception  of  the  object  and  the  per¬ 
ception  of  the  self  are  inseparable  in  one  and  the  same  mental 
act,  and  the  knowledge  of  the  one  is  as  real  as  of  the  other.  If 
there  is  no  object  perceived  there  is  no  subject  perceiving;  and 
if  there  is  no  subject  perceiving  there  is  no  object  perceived. 

Further,  when  an  object  thus  presents  or  reveals  itself  in  con¬ 
sciousness,  it  is  perceived  not  only  by  sense-perception,  but  also 
by  rational  intuition.  In  every  perceptive  intuition  a  rational 
intuition  is  implicit.  In  one  and  the  same  act  we  perceive  the  ob¬ 
ject  in  the  presentation  of  sense  and  in  the  forms  of  reason.  B> 


MAN’S  CAPACITY  TO  RECEIVE  GOD’S  REVELATION.  77 


the  intuition  of  reason  the  man  knows  that  every  beginning  or 
change  has  a  cause,  that  every  action  reveals  an  agent  and  every 
phenomenon  a  being.  Therefore  he  perceives  every  presented 
object  in  these  forms  of  reason  ;  in  every  change  he  perceives  a 
cause,  in  every  action  an  agent,  in  every  phenomenon  a  being. 
He  does  not  merely  perceive  impressions  which  are  disintegrated 
and  unsubstantial,  or  only  subjective,  but  he  perceives  the  being 
which  reveals  itself  in  them,  and  gives  them  unity  and  substan¬ 
tiality.  His  attention  is  on  the  object  perceived,  and  he  does  not 
take  notice  of  either  the  rational  or  the  perceptive  intuition  of  it. 
But  both  are  implicitly  present  in  the  knowledge.  He  knows  the 
object  at  once  in  the  presentation  of  sense  and  in  the  forms  of 
reason. 

Thus  the  transition  from  the  subjective  impression  in  con¬ 
sciousness  to  the  objective  reality  is  securely  made.  Thus  knowl¬ 
edge  in  its  beginning  is  ontological ;  it  is  the  knowledge  of  being. 
The  object  and  the  subject  is  each  known  as  a  being.  The 
phenomenon  or  appearance  in  consciousness  is  not  separated  from 
the  being  which  appears,  but  is  filled  with  it.  It  is  the  being 
itself  which  appears.1 

The  knowledge  makes  this  transition  and  remains  equally  real 
as  knowledge,  whether  the  object  is  a  body  presented  through 
the  sensorium,  or  a  human  being  presented  bodily  through  the 
senses  and  in  his  spiritual  personality  through  the  spiritual  sus¬ 
ceptibilities  and  powers,  or  God  revealed  through  the  spiritual 
and  distinctively  religious  susceptibilities  and  powers.  The  mind 
cannot  leave  these  presentations  disintegrated  and  unsubstantial 
in  the  last  case  any  more  than  in  the  others.  It  recognizes  the 
being  actually  revealed  in  them.  It  knows  the  object  both  in 
the  presentation  of  it  in  consciousness  and  in  the  forms  of  reason. 

Tlie  same  is  true  not  only  of  beings,  but  also  of  their  relations. 
No  object  is  presented  in  isolation,  but  always  in  relation  to 
something  else.  Things  are  presented  nebulous  and  undiscrim¬ 
inated.  By  attention  we  apprehend  and  distinguish  them,  and 
find  their  unity  in  relations.  These  relations  and  unities  are  not 
mere  subjective  concepts  of  the  mind  ;  they  are  realities  objec¬ 
tive  to  the  mind.  The  mind  does  not  create  them,  it  finds  them. 
We  know  all  things  in  relations  simply  because  all  things  exist 
in  relations.  The  human  race,  for  example,  is  not  a  mere  sub¬ 
jective  concept  known  merely  in  a  name,  as  the  Nominalists 
taught.  It  is  not  the  Great  Human  Being,  the  Generic  Man,  as 
1  Phil.  Basis  of  Theism,  pp.  152,  155-158,  167,  168. 


78 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


the  Realists  taught;  for  these  also  are  mere  words,  and  words 
with  no  intelligible  meaning.  But  the  human  race  is  a  concrete 
reality  consisting  of  all  human  beings  existing  in  the  race  rela¬ 
tion.  If  the  race  were  completed,  as  extinct  races  of  animals 
now  known  only  as  fossils  have  been,  then  to  a  person  capable  of 
perceiving  the  assemblage  of  them  all  as  they  existed  in  the  race- 
relation,  the  race  would  be  a  concrete  object  of  perception.  Every 
general  concept  or  notion  designated  by  a  general  name  denotes 
either  certain  definite  real  beings  existing  with  certain  actual 
qualities  and  powers  in  certain  relations,  as  man,  horse,  stone, 
planet ;  or  certain  actual  qualities,  powers  or  acts  of  such  be¬ 
ings,  contemplated  abstractly  in  thought  but  objectively  real  in 
the  beings,  as  whiteness,  hardness,  virtue,  motion,  energy  ;  or  cer¬ 
tain  objectively  real  relations  of  beings  in  which  they  actually 
exist,  as  distance,  direction,  past,  future,  dependence,  resem¬ 
blance.  They  are  not  mere  subjective  mental  concepts  and 
names;  they  are  concepts  of  beings  and  their  real  objective  qual¬ 
ities,  powers,  acts  and  relations. 

Here  again  the  things  in  relation  are  known  both  in  the  pres¬ 
entations  of  sense  and  in  the  forms  of  reason.  In  thought  we  ap¬ 
prehend  and  distinguish  the  objects  presented,  and  find  their 
unity  in  their  various  relations.  In  this  process  our  thought  is 
regulated  by  the  necessary  principles  of  reason.  We  find  also 
that  the  outward  objects  in  their  relations  exist  and  act  in  ac¬ 
cordance  with  these  principles  of  reason  ;  these  are  at  once  the 
laws  of  thought  and  the  laws  of  things.  We  reason  in  accord¬ 
ance  with  them  from  what  we  observe  to  what  we  have  not  ob¬ 
served.  Afterwards  we  find  our  inference  verified  by  the  facts, 
d  hus  the  principles  of  reason  which  regulate  all  thinking  are 
continuously  confirmed  by  observation  and  experience,  and  are 
found  to  be  objectively  real  as  well  as  subjectively  necessary. 
Physical  science  rests  on  the  assumption  that  these  principles  are 
true,  and  that  they  regulate  things  as  well  as  thought.  And  its 
great  and  ever  advancing  discoveries  are  a  continuous  verification 
of  the  truth  of  the  principles,  and  of  their  objective  reality  as 
regulating  things,  as  principles  and  laws  in  accordance  with 
which  the  universe  is  constituted.  These  principles  are  thus 
found  to  be  the  constitution  of  the  universe  and  the  laws  of  its 
orderly  action  and  evolution,  the  matrix  in  which  the  universe 
is  molded,  the  essence  and  intelligible  significance  of  all  things, 
Hence  Aristotle  called  these  rational  principles  or  ideas  the  es¬ 
sence,  or,  if  we  had  such  a  word,  the  beingness  of  things. 


MAN’S  CAPACITY  TO  RECEIVE  GOD’S  REVELATION.  79 


And  we  see,  further,  that  these  constitutive  norms  or  regulative 
principles  of  all  things  cannot  be  themselves  impersonal,  floating 
as  abstract  thoughts  in  vacuity.  Since  they  are  universal,  and 
regulative  of  all  thought  and  energy,  they  cannot  be  mere  sub¬ 
jective  beliefs  in  the  mind  of  the  observer.  Since  they  are  them¬ 
selves  the  constitution  of  the  universe,  they  must  be  the  revela¬ 
tion  of  Reason  transcending  the  universe,  and  yet  energizing  in 
it,  and  continuously  and  progressively  expressing  and  realizing 
in  finite  beings  in  the  forms  of  space  and  time  the  rational  prin¬ 
ciples,  laws,  ideals  and  ends,  which  are  archetypal  and  eternal  in 
the  transcendent  Reason.  In  the  absolute  Reason  we  have  the 
ultimate  all-conditioning  Being  of  which  the  whole  universe, 
physical  and  spiritual,  is  the  revelation.  Thus  the  rational  prin¬ 
ciples,  laws,  ideals  and  ends,  which  are  revealed  in  finite  things 
and  constitute  their  intelligibility,  and  of  which  finite  things  are 
in  this  sense  the  phenomena,  are  themselves  the  phenomena  in 
which  the  absolute  Being  appears,  and  reveals  itself  as  the  abso¬ 
lute  Reason  energizing  in  the  universe.  And  here  as  before  the 
phenomena  are  inseparable  from  the  being  and  are  filled  with  it, 
and  it  is  the  being  that  appears  and  reveals  itself  in  the  phe¬ 
nomena. 

The  existence  of  the  absolute  Being  is  also  known  by  a  neces¬ 
sary  intuition  of  reason.  Man  cannot  proceed  far  in  the  knowl¬ 
edge  of  the  objects  and  changes  about  him  without  finding  in 
himself  the  irresistible  certainty  that  some  being  exists  which 
never  began  to  be,  something  unconditioned  and  all-conditioning 
manifested  in  all  that  is.  And  this  is  not  a  mere  subjective  im¬ 
pression.  If  it  is  so,  then  nothing  objectively  real  exists.  If  we 
know  ourselves  and  outward  things  as  real  beings,  then  the  abso¬ 
lute  must  be  real  being.  If  knowledge  begins  as  ontological,  it 
must  go  on  as  ontological  to  the  knowledge  of  the  absolute  Be¬ 
ing.  In  knowing  myself  in  self  -  consciousness,  and  outward 
things  in  sense-perception,  I  know  them  in  the  forms  in  which 
reason  knows  them.  In  knowing  the  universe  I  must  know  it  in 
the  form  in  which  reason  knows  it,  as  dependent  on  some  abso¬ 
lute,  unconditioned  and  all-conditioning  Being. 

In  rational  intuition  the  mind  knows  universal  truths  and 
knows  them  as  laws  to  all  thought  and  action.  It  has  the  fun¬ 
damental  ideas  of  the  True,  the  Right,  the  Perfect,  and  of  the 
Good  estimated  by  reason  as  having  true  worth.  These  are  uni¬ 
versal,  transcending  the  person  seeing  them  in  the  light  of  rea¬ 
son.  Human  reason  cannot  leave  them  disintegrated  and  with- 


80 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


oat  substantial  being,  but  must  know  them  as  principles,  laws, 
ideas  of  the  universal  and  absolute  Reason.  And  when  we  study 
the  universe,  we  find  revealed  in  it  the  ideas  of  the  True,  the 
Right,  the  Perfect  and  the  Good,  which  we  have  already  found 
in  our  own  rational  intuition,  and  in  our  own  constitution  as 
rational  beings.  Thus  reason  finds  in  the  universe,  in  nature  and 
in  man,  the  presence  and  direction  of  the  universal  and  absolute 
Reason.  The  universe  is  known  in  the  forms  of  reason  as  de¬ 
pendent  on  God  and  as  the  revelation  of  him.  Thus  scientific 
knowledge  is  inseparable  from  the  knowledge  of  God.  In  its 
essence  as  science  it  must,  explicitly  or  implicitly,  recognize  God, 
the  absolute  Reason,  as  the  ground  of  the  universe  ;  and  on  this 
the  truth  of  all  its  conclusions  depends. 

Such  is  rational  realism.  In  this  philosophy  there  is  no  place 
for  Kant’s  doctrine  that  the  phenomenon  is  totally  separated  from 
the  noumenon  or  thing  in  itself,  and  that  the  latter  is  therefore 
entirely  unknowable,  except  that  it  is  known  not  to  be  like  the 
phenomenon.  On  the  contrary,  what  we  know  of  an  object  is 
the  object  itself  in  its  essential  being,  and  in  its  essential  signifi¬ 
cance  to  rational  intelligence.  Minds  superior  to  ours  may  per¬ 
ceive  in  it  reality  and  intelligible  significance  which  we  cannot 
perceive.  But  so  far  as  we  do  know  it,  it  is  the  object  itself 
which  we  know,  and  in  its  real  relations.  And  no  rational  be¬ 
ing,  however  superior,  can  know  in  it  anything  contradictory 
thereto.  And  we  have  this  knowledge  of  the  thing  in  itself  as 
really  whether  the  object  known  is  a  body,  or  ourselves,  or  other 
rational  and  personal  men,  or  God. 

Thus  the  evidence  that  man  has  capacity  to  receive  God’s  rev¬ 
elation  and  to  know  him  through  it,  is  found  in  his  constitution 
as  a  rational  free  person,  and  in  his  action  and  development  as 
such.  Jacobi  says  :  “  To  have  reason  and  to  know  God  is  one  ; 
as  not  to  know  God  and  to  be  a  beast  is  one.”  At  least  it  may 
be  said  that  to  be  a  personal  being  and  to  have  capacity  to  re¬ 
ceive  God’s  revelation  and  to  know  him  are  one ;  and  not  to 
have  this  capacity  and  to  be  impersonal  are  one. 

But  this  capacity  is  not  a  naked  rational  intuition  by  which, 
as  a  pure  intellectual  act  in  the  dry  light  of  reason,  man  perceives 
God.  As  in  sense  perception  there  is  the  reception  of  action 
from  without  through  the  sensorium,  as  well  as  the  perceptive 
intuition,  so  in  the  knowledge  of  God  there  is  the  receptive  side 
as  well  as  the  intuitive  ;  there  are  rational  and  spiritual  suscepti¬ 
bilities  through  which  God  reveals  himself  in  the  consciousness, 


MAN’S  CAPACITY  TO  RECEIVE  GOD’S  REVELATION.  81 


and  the  reason  reacting  in  its  intuition  perceives  him.  This  is 
what  has  been  called  the  reason-sense,  the  God-sense,  the  God- 
consciousness.  And  this  is  recognized  in  the  theological  state¬ 
ment  that  no  man  knows  God  by  u  unaided  reason.”  It  is 
equally  true  that  no  man  knows  the  outward  world  by  “  unaided 
reason.”  The  outward  world  reveals  itself  through  the  sensorium 
before  it  can  be  known  by  perceptive  intuition  or  apprehended 
in  thought ;  God  reveals  himself  through  the  rational  or  spiritual 
susceptibilities  before  he  can  be  known  in  rational  intuition  or 
apprehended  in  thought. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  mind  of  man  is  not  a  colorless  surface 
passively  receiving  with  equal  readiness  whatever  is  impressed 
on  it  from  without.  If  so  it  would  be  totally  indifferent  to  im¬ 
pressions  as  true  or  false,  and  incapable  of  discriminating  between 
them.  It  could  have  no  certainty  of  truth,  because  it  would  have 
in  itself  no  rational  norms  or  standards  by  which  to  test  it.  On 
the  contrary,  we  are  so  constituted  that  what  is  true  appeals  to 
our  rational  constitution  in  a  wholly  different  manner  from  the 
untrue.  Hence  the  teaching  of  our  current  Illuminism  that  entire 
indifference  is  essential  to  scientific  investigation,  is  always  false 
and  in  contradiction  to  man's  constitution  as  rational.  It  is  im¬ 
possible  for  a  mind,  seeing  things  in  the  unchanging  forms  of  rea¬ 
son  and  in  the  light  of  its  universal  principles  and  laws,  to  receive 
indifferently,  with  no  consciousness  of  their  incompatibility,  the 
propositions  that  two  straight  lines  inclose  a  space,  and  that  two 
straight  lines  cannot  inclose  a  space.  Man  is  constituted  rational. 
The  knowledge  of  the  principles  and  laws  of  reason  and  of  all 
things  in  its  unchanging  forms  is  normal,  and,  in  the  deepest 
sense  of  the  word,  natural  to  man  ;  that  is,  it  is  accordant  with 
his  constitution  as  rational.  The  present  tendency  to  recognize 
physical  things  as  the  only  objects  of  knowledge,  and  sense  as  its 
only  source,  is  abnormal,  and,  in  the  deepest  sense  of  the  word, 
unnatural.  It  is  contrary  to  the  constitution  of  man.  It  proves 
him  to  be  in  an  abnormal  condition,  either  degenerate  from  a 
healthier  condition,  or  as  yet  undeveloped.  God  in  revealing 
himself  to  man  aims  to  awaken  him  to  the  knowledge  of  his 
spiritual  environment  and  thereby  of  his  own  constitution  as  ra¬ 
tional  and  spiritual,  not  as  anything  abnormal  and  strange,  but 
as  his  normal  condition  and  his  deepest  nature  or  constitution. 
It  is  man’s  ignorance  of  the  spiritual  and  supernatural  in  himself 
and  his  environment,  not  his  knowledge  of  it, which  is  strange  and 
abnormal. 


6 


82 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


Thus  it  is  evident  that  the  denial  of  man’s  capacity  to  receive 
God’s  revelation  and  to  know  him  through  it  rests  only  on  some 
false  conception  of  man’s  knowledge  and  his  power  of  knowing, 
and  logically  involves  the  denial  of  the  reality  and  possibility  of 
human  knowledge. 

8.  Man  as  personal  or  spiritual  has  likeness  to  God  which 
makes  communion  with  him  and  knowledge  of  him  possible. 

Jeremy  Taylor  speaks  of  the  necessity  of  u  the  commentary  of 
kindness ;  ”  we  must  be  of  the  same  kind  or  kin  with  a  being  if 
there  is  to  be  any  conscious  and  intelligent  intercommunion.  In 
order  to  such  communion  between  two  there  must  be  a  common 
rational  and  moral  constitution,  common  principles  of  truth  and 
right  to  which  to  appeal,  common  feelings  and  motives  to  action. 
So  far  as  they  thus  participate  in  a  common  constitution  they 
are  intelligible  to  each  other  and  can  hold  conscious  communion. 
So  far  as  they  do  not  thus  participate,  they  are  separated  by  an 
impassable  gulf  across  which  even  thought  is  unable  to  pass. 
Because  man  participates  both  in  nature  and  spirit,  both  can  act 
upon  him  and  reveal  themselves  in  his  consciousness.  But  though 
he  can  act  upon  stones  and  trees,  he  cannot  reveal  himself  to 
them  because  they  are  insensate.  On  the  lower  animals,  like 
star-fishes  and  oysters,  he  can  act  so  as  to  produce  sensation  in 
them  ;  but  they  have  not  intelligence  to  take  any  distinct  cog¬ 
nizance  of  him  and  to  acquaint  themselves  with  him  in  any  intel¬ 
ligent  intercourse.  He  can  have  some  intercourse  with  his  dog, 
his  horse,  and  a  few  others  of  the  higher  animals ;  for  these  have 
some  intelligence,  and  some  appetites,  desires  and  affections  as 
motives  of  action,  in  common  with  his  own.  But  these  have  not 
the  intuitive  reason,  nor  the  free  will,  nor  the  rational,  moral 
and  religious  sentiments,  which  characterize  personality.1  Along 
the  line  which  distinguishes  the  personal  from  the  impersonal  the 
impassable  gulf  opens  and  separates  us  even  from  these.  A  dog 
may  accompany  a  boy  to  school,  but  he  cannot  participate  in  his 
trouble  in  learning  arithmetic  or  in  his  pleasure  in  any  attain¬ 
ment  in  scholarship.  He  may  accompany  his  master  to  public 
worship,  but  he  remains  as  insensate  to  its  significance  as  are  the 
stone  pillars  of  the  church.  The  dog  cannot  even  look  across 
the  dividing  gulf  and  become  aware  of  his  own  ignorance  of  all 
which  lies  beyond  it  or  even  of  the  existence  of  the  separating 
gulf.  No  brute  can  have  any  consciousness  of  its  ignorance  of 

1  Phil.  Basis  of  Theism,  pp.  537-554. 


MAN’S  CAPACITY  TO  RECEIVE  GOD’S  REVELATION.  83 


the  multiplication-table  or  of  its  incompetence  to  know  and  wor¬ 
ship  God.1 

If  man  is  in  nothing  like  God,  if  he  participates  in  no  qualities 
of  the  divine,  the  same  impassable  gulf  opens  between  them  ; 
man  is  shut  out  both  from  all  knowledge  of  God  and  from  all 
consciousness  of  his  ignorance  and  of  his  incompetence  to  know 
and  worship  him.  A  likeness  even  in  character  is  necessary  to 
a  full  understanding  of  another  ;  contrariety  of  character  makes 
a  person  to  that  extent  unintelligible.  One  who  has  always  ab¬ 
stained  from  intoxicating  drinks  cannot  understand  fully  the 
temptations,  the  pains  and  the  pleasures  of  an  habitual  drunk¬ 
ard  ;  the  character  of  Nero  is  an  enigma  and  a  seeming  impossi¬ 
bility  to  all  good  men.  One  cannot  rightly  appreciate  God’s 
love  in  Christ  if  he  interprets  it  only  from  his  own  life  of  selfish¬ 
ness.  Yet,  notwithstanding  their  difference  of  character,  on  ac¬ 
count  of  their  similar  rational  constitution  both  the  righteous 
and  the  sinner  may  know  the  law  of  love ;  the  sinner  may  under¬ 
stand  and  approve  the  requirement  of  the  law  and  condemn  him¬ 
self  as  a  transgressor.  But  if  one  lacks  entirely  a  constitutional 
quality  or  power  possessed  by  another,  so  far  he  is  shut  out  from 
all  knowledge  of  the  other  and  from  all  intercourse  with  him. 
We  cannot  understand  God’s  revelation  of  himself  either  in  the 
constitution  and  history  of  man  or  in  nature,  unless  we  are  en¬ 
dowed  with  reason  the  same  in  kind  with  God,  the  supreme  Rea¬ 
son.  It  is  because  man  is  a  personal  spirit  like  God  that  he  is 
capable  of  knowing  God  ;  capable,  like  Kepler,  of  “  thinking 
God’s  thoughts  after  him  ;  ”  capable  also  of  loving  like  God ; 
and  so  capable  of  knowing  the  things  which  are  spiritually  dis¬ 
cerned. 

Here  theism  finds  a  philosophy  which  shows  the  reality  of 
man’s  likeness  to  God  and  in  what  it  consists. 

As  personal  or  spiritual,  man  is  also  supernatural,  that  is, 
above  nature.  Herein  is  man’s  likeness  to  God,  which  enables 
him  to  receive  God’s  revelation  of  himself  and  to  know  God 
through  it. 

The  line  marking  the  distinction  between  nature  and  the 
supernatural  is  commonly  regarded  as  the  same  with  that  between 
the  finite  and  the  absolute,  that  is,  between  finite  beings  and 
God.  If  this  is  so  man  is  not  supernatural ;  he  has  no  knowl¬ 
edge  of  the  supernatural  in  experience  ;  it  has  never  presented 
itself  in  his  consciousness  ;  he  is  destitute  of  all  elements  by 

1  Pliil.  Basis  of  Theism,  p.  18. 


84 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


which  lie  can  construct  the  idea  in  thought ;  it  is  merely  that 
which  is  not  included  in  nature  ;  the  idea  is  void  of  positive  con¬ 
tents.  When  he  attempts  to  throw  his  thought  across  the  line 
dividing  nature  from  the  supernatural  his  thought  rebounds  on 
him  as  a  mere  negation  ;  he  has  no  positive  knowledge  which  he 
can  carry  across  with  him.  Thus  logically  he  is  forced  upon 
Spencerian  agnosticism.  If  he  attempts  to  escape  by  saying  that 
he  has  positive  knowledge  of  what  God  is  through  the  universe 
in  which  God  reveals  himself,  he  is  driven  on  another  difficulty 
equally  fatal.  For  by  the  supposition  the  whole  universe  is  in¬ 
cluded  in  nature ;  there  is  in  it  nothing  above  nature  ;  and  thus 
nature  is  all  which  the  theologian  has  to  carry  across  the  line 
and  with  which  to  account  for  nature.  God,  then,  is  only  nature  ; 
the  Great  Nature,  as  he  is  sometimes  called.  Then  the  super¬ 
natural  has  disappeared  and  nature  is  all  and  is  from  everlasting. 
Thus  if  a  theologian  identifies  the  line  of  demarkation  between 
nature  and  the  supernatural  with  that  between  the  finite  and  the 
absolute,  logically  he  has  only  the  alternative  between  Spencerian 
agnosticism  and  a  materialism  which  recognizes  nothing  but  na¬ 
ture  going  on  in  its  invariable  sequences  of  causal  dependence 
from  all  eternity.  This  concession  of  theologians  that  the  finite 
universe  includes  nothing  supernatural,  cripples  them  in  their 
conflict  with  skepticism,  agnosticism  and  materialism  ;  and  to 
this  these  forms  of  unbelief  in  great  part  owe  their  prevalence. 
The  question  is  not  so  much  whether  God  exists,  as  whether 
there  is  anything  spiritual  or  supernatural  in  man. 

In  truth,  the  line  between  the  supernatural  and  the  natural  is 
between  personal  beings  and  impersonal.  The  rational  free  will 
is  in  its  essence  supernatural,  not  as  originating  power  but  as 
directing  and  exerting  it.  It  is  a  power  which  being  enlightened 
by  reason  is  self-directive  and  self-exertive,  and  as  such  is  above 
the  correlations  of  force  in  the  fixed  course  of  nature,  and  pro¬ 
duces  effects  in  nature  which  nature  left  to  its  fixed  course  would 
not  have  produced.  Without  at  least  so  much  as  this  there  can 
be  no  free  and  morally  responsible  agent  in  the  universe. 

Man,  therefore,  as  a  personal  or  spiritual  being  is  supernatural. 
As  such  he  knows  what  the  supernatural  is.  He  knows  in  him¬ 
self  reason  and  free  will  and  rational  motives,  the  essential  attri¬ 
butes  of  a  supernatural  or  spiritual  being.  As  a  spirit  he  is  like 
God  who  is  a  Spirit;  he  participates  in  reason  the  same  in  kind 
with  God,  the  eternal  Reason  ;  he  recognizes  as  imperative  in  his 
own  reason  the  same  law  of  love  which  God  commands ,  he  can 


MAN’S  CAPACITY  TO  RECEIVE  GOD’S  REVELATION.  85 


love  like  God.  Thus  he  has  something  in  common  with  God. 
He  is  on  the  same  side  of  the  line  with  God,  he  is  a  rational  spirit 
like  him.  When  he  tries  to  think  of  God  he  has  positive  knowl¬ 
edge  of  him  as  personal  Spirit,  as  energizing  Reason,  or  rational 
Will.  His  thought  is  still  negative  as  to  the  unconditionateness 
or  infinitude  of  God,  but  positive  as  to  the  rational  Spirit  that 
is  unconditioned  and  infinite.  And  so  far  as  the  miraculous  re¬ 
veals  the  supernatural,  man  has  knowledge  of  it  in  his  own 
rational  and  free  personality,  in  his  own  supernatural  powers. 
Thus  man  is  in  the  image  of  God.  Thus,  and  thus  only,  is  he 
capable  of  communion  with  God,  of  receiving  revelation  of  him, 
of  knowing  and  serving  him. 

Therefore,  in  considering  whether  man  has  knowledge  of  God, 
the  decisive  question  is,  Are  we  rational,  free,  personal  beings  ? 
If  so,  we  are  supernatural  in  the  true  meaning  of  the  word.  If 
we  can  honestly  and  heartily  affirm  our  own  personality  in  its 
true  significance,  the  belief  in  God,  the  eternal  Spirit,  can  hardly 
fail  to  follow. 

This  common  misplacement  of  the  line  of  demarkation  between 
nature  and  the  supernatural  not  only  precludes  logically  the  pos¬ 
itive  knowledge  of  God,  but  also  the  full  and  correct  knowledge 
of  man.  It  shuts  him  up  in  nature  with  no  outlook  into  the  su¬ 
pernatural.  But  because  man  is  spirit  and  therein  supernatural, 
he  lias  the  knowledge  of  the  supernatural  in  his  consciousness  of 
himself.  While  as  to  his  physical  organization  he  is  in  nature 
as  really  as  are  the  trees,  is  sensitive  to  its  action  on  him,  and  so 
knows  it  in  his  conscious  experience,  in  his  spirit  he  is  supernat¬ 
ural,  is  sensitive  to  the  action  of  the  supernatural  on  him,  and 
knows  it  in  his  conscious  experience.  Thus  he  knows  two  sys¬ 
tems  in  the  universe,  the  natural,  and  the  spiritual  or  supernat¬ 
ural.  As  he  belongs  to  nature,  he  receives  in  his  sensorium  im¬ 
pressions  from  material  things  and  physical  forces,  and  his  con¬ 
sciousness  becomes  a  centre  on  which  all  the  forces  of  nature 
converge  and  in  which  they  reveal  themselves.  As  spirit  he  is 
sensitive  to  spiritual  and  supernatural  influences  from  man  and 
God  ;  his  consciousness  is  a  centre  on  which  the  powers  of  the 
spiritual  system  converge  and  in  which  they  reveal  themselves. 
Thus  he  has  knowledge  of  the  system  of  nature  and  of  the  ra¬ 
tional  and  moral  system,  and  of  their  unity  in  the  universe  which 
is  the  manifestation  of  God.  The  unity  of  the  two  appears  in 
the  subordination  of  nature  to  spirit  and  its  harmony  with  it  as 
the  sphere  in  which  it  acts  and  the  medium  through  which  it  is 


86 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


revealed.  Nature  is  filled  with  the  divine  Spirit  and  reveals  it, 
as  the  atmosphere  is  filled  with  the  sunlight  and  reveals  the  sun. 

“  The  earth  is  crammed  with  heaven, 

And  every  common  bush  afire  with  God. 

But  only  he  who  sees  takes  off  his  shoes  ; 

The  rest  sit  round  it  —  and  pick  blackberries.” 

And  if  the  physical  organization  of  man  is  but  the  form  and 
medium  in  and  through  which  the  human  spirit  reveals  itself,  if 
all  nature  is  but  the  form  and  medium  in  and  through  which  God 
and  the  spiritual  system  are  revealed,  the  antagonism  between 
nature  and  the  supernatural  disappears,  but  the  distinction  be¬ 
tween  them  remains  ;  and  man  by  virtue  of  his  spiritual  and  su¬ 
pernatural  powers  is  participant  in  the  light  of  the  divine  Rea¬ 
son,  and  is  capable  of  knowing  God  and  of  communing  with  him, 
of  knowing  the  supernatural  and  participating  in  it. 

Thus  man  is  at  once  a  supernatural  being  in  a  supernatural  or 
spiritual  environment,  and  participant  of  an  animal  nature  in  a 
physical  environment.  If  we  once  grasp  this  reality  it  will  be 
impossible  to  doubt  that  his  spiritual  environment  may  reveal  it¬ 
self  in  his  consciousness  through  his  spiritual  susceptibilities,  as 
his  physical  environment  reveals  itself  through  his  senses.  And 
spirit  will  no  longer  be  conceived  as  the  ghostly  and  ghastly,  but 
as  the  essentially  and  distinctively  human. 

4.  This  capacity  to  know  God  is  discovered  in  the  examination 
of  man’s  constitution  as  a  personal  being. 

As  a  personal  and  supernatural  being  man  is  endowed  with 
reason,  susceptibility  to  rational  and  spiritual  motives  and  emo¬ 
tions,  and  free  will.  Through  each  of  these  he  has  capacity  to 
receive  the  revelation  of  God. 

By  his  human  reason  man  participates  in  the  light  of  the  di¬ 
vine  and  universal  Reason.  In  this  light  he  knows  the  divine  and 
universal  Reason  revealed  in  his  own  consciousness.  In  this  light 
he  confronts  the  universe  as  the  object  of  his  intelligence,  and 
finds  the  divine  and  universal  Reason  revealed  in  the  rational 
principles  and  laws  which  regulate  it.  He  ascends  “  through 
nature  up  to  nature’s  God,”  because  he  sees  it  in  the  light  of 
universal  principles  which  are  the  “constituent  elements  of  rea¬ 
son  ;  ”  and  these  illuminate  his  thinking  because  he  is  in  the 
image  of  God  and  the  light  of  the  divine  Reason  shines  in  his 
rational  intelligence.  Beginning  at  the  level  of  the  brute  in  the 
impressions  of  sense,  the  mind  is  able  to  penetrate  through  sensa¬ 
tion  far  beyond  sense,  to  know  the  systems  both  of  nature  and 


MAN’S  CAPACITY  TO  RECEIVE  GOD’S  REVELATION.  87 


spirit,  and  their  unity  in  their  common  dependence  on  God.  As 
Plato  says,  “  The  soul  is  a  sort  of  oracle.”  1  This  it  is  by  virtue 
of  the  fact  that  it  is  Reason. 

Thus  God  is  revealed  to  man  through  his  reason,  both  immedi¬ 
ately  in  his  consciousness  and  mediately  through  the  universe, 
including  both  the  physical  and  the  moral  systems. 

And  these  are  revelations  and  not  mere  products  of  thought. 
Knowledge  cannot  originate  in  mere  thinking.  Thought  must 
strike  on  some  object  already  revealed,  and  be  reflected  back  from 
it,  in  order  to  illuminate  the  mind  with  knowledge.  As  the  every¬ 
where  diffused  daylight  comes  from  the  reflection  of  the  light  of 
the  sun  from  the  atmosphere  and  innumerable  objects,  the  mind  is 
illuminated  with  intelligence  by  thought  reflected  from  innumer¬ 
able  points  of  reality  presented  around  it.  Goethe  says  :  “  All 
the  thinking  in  the  world  does  not  bring  us  to  thought.  We 
must  be  right  by  nature,  so  that  good  thoughts  may  come  before 
us  like  free  children  of  God  and  cry,  4  Here  we  are.’  ”  Genius 
does  not  create  its  great  thoughts  by  thinking.  Rather  it  is  a 
power  that  sees  farther  and  deeper  than  others  into  the  realities 
presented  before  it.  The  thoughts  that  come  trooping  before  it 
as  the  children  of  God  crying,  “  Here  we  are,”  come  from  all  the 
objects  of  the  physical  and  moral  systems,  as  they  present  them¬ 
selves  before  its  “vision  and  faculty  divine,”  and  reveal  the  spir¬ 
itual  and  divine  that  is  in  them,  visible  to  him  who  can  see.  So 
in  the  spiritual  life  the  knowledge  of  God  is  not  originated  by 
thinking,  but  presupposes  revelation.  And  there  is  a  spiritual 
insight  analogous  to  that  of  genius,  which  sees  into  the  signifi¬ 
cance  of  the  reality  revealed.  In  the  revelation  of  God  in  the 
Christian  consciousness,  the  humblest  mind  has  a  vision  of  God 
and  of  the  universe  in  its  relation  to  him,  which  ungodly  genius 
with  all  its  powers  cannot  see. 

God  reveals  himself  also  through  the  feelings.  While  revela¬ 
tion  is  always  to  the  intellect,  it  is  not  always  immediately  to  it, 
but  may  be  made  through  other  powers  and  susceptibilities  of  our 
being.  God  reveals  himself  through  man’s  feelings,  the  motives 
which  impel  him  to  action  and  the  emotions  in  which  his  feelings 
react  on  the  action  and  its  object ;  and  he  is  constitutionally  en¬ 
dowed  with  susceptibilities  through  which  he  is  capable  of  receiv¬ 
ing  this  revelation.  The  sensibilities  are  points  of  sensitivity  to 
the  action  of  outward  agencies,  through  which  they  can  make 
their  presence  felt  in  the  consciousness.  The  sensorium  and  the 

1  M avTUiov  ye  tl  nal  r/  ipvxy.  Phaedrus,  242. 


88 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


natural  appetites,  desires  and  affections  are  the  points  of  sensi¬ 
tivity  at  which  man’s  physical  environment  comes  in  contact  with 
him  and  makes  its  presence  felt  in  his  consciousness.  The  ra¬ 
tional  sensibilities,  the  susceptibility  of  scientific,  moral,  sesthetic, 
teleological  and  religious  motives  and  emotions,  are  the  points 
of  sensitivity  to  the  spiritual  environment,  through  which  it 
makes  its  presence  felt  in  the  spiritual  consciousness.  Through 
these  God  reveals  himself;  through  motives  and  emotions  per¬ 
taining  to  truth,  to  right  and  wrong,  to  perfection  and  beauty,  tG 
the  honorable  and  worthy,  to  the  realization  of  the  true  good,  and 
through  the  religious  motives  and  emotions  pertaining  directly  to 
God.  Man  not  only  knows  himself  to  be  a  part  of  the  system  of 
nature,  but  also  feels  it  in  the  weight  of  his  body,  in  the  impact 
of  physical  forces,  in  hunger  and  thirst,  in  all  sensation.  So  he 
not  only  knows  himself  to  be  a  part  of  the  moral  and  spiritual 
system,  but  feels  it  in  all  rational  and  spiritual  motives  and  emo¬ 
tions.  In  these,  spiritual  reality  is  felt  and  revealed  before  it  is 
proved  or  even  reflected  on  in  thought.  Plato  said :  “  I  know 
nothing  more  clear  and  certain  than  this  ;  that  I  must  be  as  good 
and  noble  as  it  is  possible  for  me  to  be.”  Says  W.  S.  Lilly :  “  I 
cannot  prove  to  you  the  beauty  of  a  sunset,  or  the  sacredness  of 
sorrow,  or  the  nobleness  of  4  Regulus  and  of  the  Scauri,  and  of 
Paulus,  prodigal  of  his  great  soul  when  the  Punic  enemy  tri¬ 
umphed.’  ”  Religious  sentiments  are  inwrought  into  our  inmost 
consciousness.  In  them  man  knows  his  contact  with  the  infinite 
and  his  kinship  with  the  divine.  In  them  the  reality  of  the  un¬ 
seen  and  the  eternal  reveals  itself  in  the  soul,  and  all  its  sensi¬ 
bilities  quiver  at  the  mysterious  presence.  These  religious  sen¬ 
sibilities  lie  deeper  than  thought ;  the  consciousness  of  them  is 
antecedent  to  reasoning,  and  cannot  by  reasoning  be  destroyed  ; 
nor  by  the  crowd  and  turmoil  and  pressure  of  other  interests  be 
overwhelmed.  We  are  voyagers  on  the  ocean  of  eternity;  and 
though  we  go  down  into  the  ship  and  hide  the  great  expanse  from 
our  eyes,  though  there  we  abandon  ourselves  to  amusement  or 
business,  we  must  sometimes  feel  the  heaving  of  the  infinite  ocean 
on  which  we  sail.  It  is  the  voice  of  God  within  the  soul,  not  al¬ 
ways  definite  and  articulate ;  it  is  the  felt  presence  of  the  Most 
High. 

“  Like  an  aeolian  harp  that  wakes 

No  certain  air,  but  overtakes 

Far  thought  with  music  that  it  makes; 

Such  seemed  the  whisper  at  my  side. 

What  is  it  thou  knowest,  sweet  voice  ?  I  cried. 


MAN’S  CAPACITY  TO  RECEIVE  GOD’S  REVELATION.  89 


A  hidden  hope,  the  voice  replied, 

So  heavenly  toned  that  in  that  hour, 

From  out  my  sullen  heart  a  power 
Broke,  like  the  rainbow  from  the  shower, 

To  feel,  although  no  tongue  should  prove, 

That  every  cloud  that  spreads  above 
And  veiletli  love,  itself  is  love.” 

If  this  is  not  so,  then  man  is  constitutionally  endowed  with  no 
susceptibility  through  which  he  is  sensitive  to  the  action  of  his 
spiritual  environment,  or  through  which  any  action  of  God  upon 
him  can  make  itself  felt;  he  is  constituted,  as  Schelling  expresses 
it,  with  “  an  original  atheism  of  consciousness.” 

Man  knows  God  also  in  the  sphere  of  free  will.  In  the  ex¬ 
ercise  of  free  will  he  knows  himself  as  a  person  ;  he  becomes 
aware  of  his  own  spiritual  power,  of  his  moral  obligation  and  re¬ 
sponsibility.  He  knows  himself  in  the  moral  and  spiritual  sys¬ 
tem  ;  law  in  its  reality,  universality  and  imperativeness  opens  to 
his  view  like  an  all-encompassing  firmament  glowing  with  light,  in 
the  centre  of  which  and  beneath  its  zenith,  move  where  he  will, 
he  must  always  act.  In  this  knowledge  of  the  all-encompassing 
and  all-illuminating  law,  he  has  the  vision  of  the  all-encompass¬ 
ing,  all-illuminating  God,  who  “besets  him  behind  and  before.” 

The  conclusion  must  be  that  man  is  endowed  with  capacity  to 
receive  God’s  revelation  of  himself  and  to  know  God  through  it. 
He  finds  God  within  himself  revealed  in  his  consciousness.  This 
knowledge  is  not  rooted  in  any  single  faculty  alone,  but  in  the 
whole  personal  or  spiritual  constitution  of  the  man  ;  and  it  dis¬ 
closes  itself  as  a  factor  in  the  whole  life  and  history  of  mankind. 
In  his  thinking  he  finds  his  thought  regulated  by  transcendent  and 
universal  principles  through  which  he  sees  the  Reason  that  is 
universal  and  supreme.  In  his  motives  and  emotions  he  finds 
himself  drawn  to  that  which  is  above  and  beyond  him  and  re¬ 
lated  to  the  divine.  In  his  voluntary  energizing  he  finds  himself 
under  a  law  above  himself  laying  obligation  on  him  in  every  act 
and  speaking  within  him  with  the  voice  of  God.1 

5.  Man’s  capacity  to  know  God  is  not  a  special  faith-faculty.  **r-* 

Some  refer  our  knowledge  of  God, to  a  special  faith-faculty. 
They  are,  however,  commonly  not  careful  to  define  with  exact¬ 
ness  what  they  mean  by  it.  Hamilton  acknowledged  a  faith  in 
God  while  denying  the  knowledge  of  him  ;  but  he  nowhere  de- 

1  I  here  merely  indicate  the  evidence  in  man’s  constitution  of  his  capacity 
to  know  God.  It  is  involved  in  the  evidence  in  man’s  constitution  of  the  ex¬ 
istence  of  God,  which  will  be  fully  presented  in  a  subsequent  chapter. 


90 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


fines  what  the  faith  is.  Wace  explicitly  declines  to  define  it: 
“  Without  any  strict  definition  we  know  sufficiently  well  where 
to  observe  it,  and  on  what  main  principles  the  structure  of  the 
Christian  creed  is  built.”  1 

It  is  not  worth  while  to  dispute  about  a  word.  Of  course  tfie 
mind  has  power  to  do  whatever  it  does.  If  we  call  this  power  a 
faculty  it  is  still  nothing  but  the  mind  itself  in  its  integral  unity 
considered  as  capable  of  doing  it.  But  this  is  more  than  a  ques¬ 
tion  of  words. 

In  the  foregoing  discussion  it  has  been  shown  that  the  belief 
in  God  is  rooted  in  man’s  constitution  as  a  rational  person,  and 
ramified  through  all  the  powers  and  susceptibilities  of  his  per¬ 
sonality.  There  is,  therefore,  in  the  constitution  of  man  no  psy¬ 
chological  basis  for  an  isolated  faculty  for  the  knowledge  of  God, 
and  no  facts  requiring  it  for  their  explanation.  On  the  contrary, 
the  assumption  of  such  a  faculty  involves  serious  errors,  weakens 
the  defense  of  theism,  and  lays  it  open  to  difficulties  and  objec¬ 
tions  which  otherwise  would  not  have  arisen. 

The  treatment  of  the  supposed  faith-faculty  commonly  implies 
that  it  is  outside  of  human  reason,  and  that  the  belief  arising 
from  it  is  not  knowledge.  Thus  theism  and  all  theology  are  ex¬ 
cluded  from  knowledge  and  remanded  to  faith  and  fancy.  The 
real  question  is,  whether  man’s  belief  in  God  is  knowledge,  in 
harmony  with  reason  and  with  all  which  is  essential  in  rational 
personality. 

If  man  has  knowledge  only  through  the  senses  and  his  intel¬ 
lectual  action  is  limited  to  reaffirming  what  is  given  in  sense,  and 
if  these  are  all  the  powers  used  in  the  acquisition  of  scientific 
knowledge,  then,  if  he  is  to  know  God,  he  must  be  endowed  with 
an  additional  and  special  faculty  for  that  service.  But  if  man  is 
endowed  with  reason,  by  which  he  knows  universal  principles 
and  laws  regulative  of  all  thought  and  action,  then  in  rational 
and  religious  susceptibilities  his  being  will  be  open  to  the  revela¬ 
tion  of  the  supernatural  and  of  God,  and  he  will  need  no  special 
faith-faculty  for  the  knowledge  of  God.  Then  his  reason  is  in 
affinity  with  the  absolute  Reason,  which  has  ordered  and  consti¬ 
tuted  the  universe,  and  he  is  capable  of  knowing  both  the  uni¬ 
verse  and  the  God  who  reveals  himself  in  it. 

Religious  belief  is  a  spontaneous  forth-putting  of  the  constitu¬ 
tion  of  man.  It  has  its  roots  in  all  that  constitutes  him  a  person 

1  Bampton  Lectures,  1879;  The  Foundations  of  Faith,  p.  27.  On  the  faith- 
faculty,  see  Phil.  Basis  of  Theism,  pp.  7  6-80. 


MAN’S  CAPACITY  TO  RECEIVE  GOD’S  REVELATION.  91 


or  spirit,  and  so  distinguishes  him  as  human  from  the  brutes. 
The  capacity  for  religion  is  inherent  in  humanity  ;  its  manifesta¬ 
tion  in  religion  is  inseparable  from  the  normal  development  of 
man.  But  this  is  no  longer  true  if  religious  belief  arises  from  a 
special  faculty  or  organ.  Then  it  is  no  longer  rooted  in  the  en¬ 
tire  constitution  of  man  as  personal  ;  it  is  isolated  from  ordinary 
intelligence,  from  the  ordinary  laws  of  thought,  and  from  all  the 
powers  of  reason  which  make  him  capable  of  empirical,  mathe¬ 
matical,  logical  and  philosophical  science.  Then  the  faculty  of 
religious  belief  is  put  outside  of  the  community  of  human  facul¬ 
ties,  and  set  apart  from  all  that  is  essential  to  constitute  man  per¬ 
sonal  and  give  him  knowledge  of  the  universe.  It  necessarily 
follows  that  the  faculty  of  religious  belief,  set  apart  from  the  rea¬ 
son,  comes  into  contradiction  to  it;  antagonism  between  religious 
knowledge  and  science  is  organized  into  the  constitution  of  the 
human  mind,  and  the  belief  in  God  can  maintain  itself  only  by 
vaulting  over  or  breaking  down  the  reason,  and  the  rational  in¬ 
telligence  which  gives  us  science.  Then  religion  itself  is  in  its 
essence  ghostly  and  ghastly,  but  not  human,  a  concern  of  another 
and  unknown  world,  but  not  of  this.1 

This  error  can  be  eradicated  only  by  correcting  the  erroneous 
theory  of  knowledge  on  which  it  is  founded.  It  is  not  the  belief 
in  God  which  first  opens  to  man  a  glimpse  of  the  supernatural. 
By  virtue  of  his  personality  man  is  himself  supernatural,  and  his 
whole  experience  is  in  the  supernatural  sphere  not  less  than  in 
the  natural.  In  every  rational  intuition  of  a  universal  principle 
or  law,  in  every  motive  and  emotion  pertaining  to  truth,  right, 
perfection  or  worth,  in  every  choice  of  free  will,  he  knows  him¬ 
self  as  supernatural,  he  sees  and  feels  supernatural  realities.  His 
belief  in  God  is  his  knowledge  of  the  absolute  Reason,  of  whom 
he  himself,  as  rational,  is  the  image  ;  and  in  that  knowledge  alone 
he  finds  the  reality  and  unity  of  all  his  knowing.  We  cannot  es¬ 
tablish  theism  in  the  face  of  agnostic  and  materialistic  science 

1  The  words  of  Leslie  Stephen  are  significant  here :  “  What  could  be  easier 
than  to  form  a  catena  of  the  most  philosophical  defenders  of  Christianity,  who 
have  exhausted  language  in  declaring  the  impotence  of  the  unassisted  intel¬ 
lect?  Comte  has  not  more  explicitly  enounced  the  incapacity  of  man  to  deal 
with  the  absolute  and  the  infinite  than  the  whole  series  of  orthodox  writers. 
‘Trust  your  reason,’  we  have  been  told  till  we  are  tired  of  the  phrase,  ‘and 
you  will  become  agnostics.’  We  take  you  at  your  word;  we  will  become 
agnostics.”  Hegel  says  that  the  humility  which  affirms  that  the  finite  cannot 
know  God  nor  come  into  direct  relations  with  lfim,  simply  ascribes  to  God 
powerlessness  to  make  himself  known.  —  Phil,  der  Religion ,  vol.  i.  p.  195. 


92 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


by  conceding  that  man  is  a  creature  of  nature  only,  a  higher 
animal,  and  then  adding  to  his  nature  a  special  faculty  through 
which  he  may  catch  a  glimpse  of  the  supernatural  —  a  sphere  of 
reality  which  he  has  never  entered  and  in  which,  drenched  in 
nature,  he  does  not  participate.  Such  a  faculty  would  be  in 
philosophy  what  Horace  censured  in  poetry,  a  purple  patch  on  a 
worn  and  faded  garment.  On  the  contrary,  we  must  show  that 
man  is  constituted  supernatural  and  knows  the  supernatural  in 
knowing  himself ;  that  his  knowdedge  of  God  is  at  home  in  the 
community  of  his  human  faculties  ;  and  that  it  arises  in  the  high¬ 
est  exercise  of  his  reason,  not  in  vaulting  over  it  and  standing 
apart  in  antagonism  to  it. 

Mr.  Wace  exemplifies  the  dangerous  tendencies  which  I  have 
pointed  out.  He  says  that  the  faith  which  believes  in  God’s  love 
and  almightiness  in  face  of  evil  u  has  abandoned  the  ground  of 
mere  rational  belief,  and  has  taken  a  step  which  justifies  in  prin¬ 
ciple  any  subsequent  advance.  It  has  given  up  once  for  all  the 
right  to  measure  its  assent  by  the  dictates  of  reason  alone,  and 
has  committed  itself  to  the  hands  of  another  guide  altogether. 

.  .  .  The  faith  of  the  creeds  recognizes  these  difficulties.  It  owns 
that  they  are  insuperable  on  any  grounds  of  mere  natural  reason, 
and  it  offers  supernatural  realities  and  supernatural  assurances 
to  overcome  them.”  Speaking  of  attempts  to  compromise  with 
science  by  minimizing  the  articles  of  faith  he  says,  “  As  long  as 
we  retain  any  of  them  as  more  than  bare  speculations  we  go  be¬ 
yond  scientific  grounds  and  rest  on  assurances  which  transcend 
the  capacity  of  mere  reason.”  Even  the  witness  and  the  categoric 
imperative  of  conscience  he  regards  as  an  exercise  of  a  faith- 
faculty  distinct  from  the  reason  ;  “  to  believe  in  the  absolute  su¬ 
premacy  of  right  over  wrong  ”  is  “  a  momentous  act  of  faith,  .  .  . 
respecting  which  it  is  hardly  too  much  to  say,  in  Hume’s  own 
words,  that  it  4  subverts  all  the  principles  of  the  understand¬ 
ing.’  ’’’  1  In  short,  he  seems  to  declare  a  complete  separation  and 
antagonism  of  reason  and  faith,  and  to  assert  the  right  and  ne¬ 
cessity  of  believing  through  the  faith-faculty  what  is  in  contra¬ 
diction  to  reason. 

I  heartily  concur  with  him  in  affirming  that  man  has  capacity 
to  know  God ;  as  he  intimates,  we  are  in  direct  contact  with  him. 
The  objection  is  to  a  special  organ  of  faith  distinct  and  isolated 
from  man’s  reason,  his  rational  intelligence,  and  his  human  con¬ 
stitution  as  a  rational  and  personal  being.  Man  has  a  distinct 
1  The  Foundations  of  Faith,  pp.  15,  18,  43,  44. 


MAN’S  CAPACITY  TO  RECEIVE  GOD’S  REVELATION.  93 


faculty  of  religious  knowledge  only  in  the  sense  in  which  he  has  a 
distinct  faculty  of  mathematical,  ethical  or  aesthetic  knowledge. 
The  preeminent  and  imperative  demand  on  the  Christian  theism 
of  this  day  is  to  establish  the  synthesis  of  reason  and  faith. 
Faith  involves  the  highest  exercise  of  reason.  As  Dr.  Thomas 
Arnold  defined  faith,  it  is  “  reason  leaning  on  God.”  We  know 
God  by  leaning  on  him.  W e  know  God  by  leaning  on  him  in 
the  faith  which  implies  an  act  of  will,  and  which,  as  such,  is  es¬ 
sentially  trust  ;  we  know  him  thus  in  experience.  But  in  the 
case  now  under  consideration  it  is  not  will  leaning  on  God,  but 
reason.  Reason  knows  its  intuitional  principles  and  laws,  which 
regulate  all  thought  and  action,  as  true,  real  and  universal  only 
as  they  lean  on  the  absolute  Reason  and  are  supported  by  it  as 
its  eternal  truths  and  laws.  In  the  words  of  Principal  Tulloch  : 
“  The  mind,  intuitive  in  its  lowest  energy,  is  equally  so  in  its 
highest.  If  looking  outward  it  has  no  further  explanation  of  the 
visible  world  than  that  it  is  present  in  apprehension  and  there¬ 
fore  must  be  conceived  as  existent,  so  looking  upward  from  the 
sphere  of  finite  reality,  it  perceives  a  higher  world  of  truth  which 
equally  makes  itself  good  in  apprehension.  Such  a  higher  world 
of  intuition,  by  which  we  apprehend  realities  beyond  the  region 
of  the  sensible,  is  one  which  is  admitted  by  every  school  of  phil¬ 
osophy  save  that  which,  from  the  extremely  unphilosophical  as¬ 
sumption  lying  at  its  basis,  is  bound  to  ignore  everything  beyond 
the  sensible.”  1 

Those  who  find  man’s  knowledge  of  the  supernatural  only  in 
an  isolated  faith-faculty  are  wont  to  speak  of  “  mere  reason,” 
“natural  reason,”  “unaided  reason,”  as  incompetent  to  know 
God.  To  this  true  philosophy  assents.  Man  does  not  know  God 
by  unaided  reason,  but  only  as  God  by  his  action  has  revealed 
himself  to  man.  And  philosophy  further  affirms  that  it  is 
equally  true  that  the  unaided  reason  of  man  cannot  know  any¬ 
thing.  Man  does  not  know  the  physical  world  by  unaided  rea¬ 
son,  but  only  as  by  its  action  on  the  sensorium  it  first  reveals  or 
presents  itself  in  consciousness.  He  does  not  know  his  fellow- 
men  in  their  personality  by  unaided  reason,  but  only  as  by  their 
action  on  him  through  his  spiritual  susceptibilities  and  powers, 
they  present  or  reveal  themselves  as  personal  in  his  conscious¬ 
ness  ;  as  when  we  see  a  heroic  act  of  virtue  our  spiritual  sus¬ 
ceptibilities  t  hrill  responsive  to  it.  In  like  manner  man  does  not 
know  God  by  unaided  reason,  but  only  as  God  by  some  action 

1  Tulloch  ;  Theism,  p.  319. 


94 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


on  the  man  reveals  or  presents  himself  in  his  consciousness. 
God  alone  has  absolute  knowledge  independent  of  revelation 
from  without.  In  this  respect  our  knowledge  of  God  is  the  same 
as  our  knowledge  of  the  universe.  Thus  there  is  a  basis  for  the 
scientific  knowledge  of  God,  the  same  in  kind  with  the  basis  for 
the  scientific  knowledge  of  nature  and  of  man.  The  Christian 
doctrine  of  man’s  dependence  on  the  Spirit  of  God  for  spiritual 
light  and  life  accords  with  this  philosophical  principle.  The 
physical  world  is  continually  revealing  itself  in  man's  conscious¬ 
ness,  not  only  through  the  sensorium  as  existing,  but  also 
through  the  appetites,  desires  and  affections  of  his  animal  life,  as 
that  on  which  he  depends  for  the  satisfaction  of  his  desires  and 
for  all  merely  natural  good.  In  an  analogous  way  God,  who 
environs  man  spiritually,  according  to  the  Christian  doctrine 
of  the  Holy  Spirit,  is  continually  revealing  himself  in  the  con¬ 
sciousness,  not  only  as  existing,  but  also  as  that  on  which  the 
man  depends  as  the  source  of  all  spiritual  light,  the  satisfaction 
of  all  spiritual  desires,  and  the  realization  of  all  spiritual  perfec¬ 
tion  and  good. 

Dr.  Carpenter  says  in  his  Mental  Physiology,  there  are 
branches  of  science  in  which  “  our  conclusions  rest  not  on  any 
one  set  of  experiences,  but  on  our  unconscious  coordination  of 
the  whole  aggregate  of  our  experience ;  not  on  any  one  train 
of  reasoning,  but  on  the  converging  of  all  our  lines  of  thought 
toward  one  centre.”  This  is  true  of  our  knowledge  of  God.  Its 
roots  are  in  our  feelings,  our  reason,  our  consciousness  of  free 
will  and  moral  responsibility  ;  in  our  experience  and  our  reflec¬ 
tive  thought ;  in  our  speculative  thinking  and  our  practical  action 
as  to  the  true,  the  right,  the  perfect,  the  good  and  the  absolute  ; 
in  all  the  elements  and  ramifications  of  human  personality.  Ac¬ 
cordingly  Luthardt  defines  faith  as  u  that  mental  act  in  which 
my  whole  spiritual  being,  my  knowing,  feeling  and  willing  com¬ 
bine  in  uniting  themselves  with  the  object  of  faith.”1 

Because  this  belief  thus  springs  from  man’s  inmost  self,  from 
all  in  him  which  constitutes  him  a  human  person,  it  intertwines 
itself  with  all  his  normal  action.  Therefore  it  is  as  certain  to 
him  as  his  own  existence.  To  give  up  this  belief  is  to  give  up 
his  belief  in  himself  as  a  rational,  personal  man,  to  give  up  all 
that  is  noblest  and  most  worthy  in  the  development  of  his  being, 
and  in  the  ends  for  which  he  lives. 

1  Apologetic  Lectures  on  the  Fundamental  Truths  of  Christianity,  Trans v 
page  153. 


MAN’S  CAPACITY  TO  RECEIVE  GOD’S  REVELATION.  95 


For  the  same  reason  it  calls  for  the  consecration  of  the  whole 
person  to  God  in  loving  trust  and  service.  A  man  does  not  give 
his  life  for  a  mere  speculation,  a  conclusion  reached  by  dint  of 
argument ;  but  for  truth  which  inspires,  guides  and  quickens 
him  in  the  right  conduct  of  life,  and  which  he  believes  essential 
to  realizing  the  true  good  of  mankind.  The  Christian  belief  is 
not  a  speculation  ;  it  is  not  so  much  that  the  believer  has  laid 
hold  of  truth  as  that  he  has  laid  hold  of  God ;  not  so  much  that 
he  has  laid  hold  of  God  as  that  God  has  laid  hold  of  him. 

And  the  believer  has  not  merely  found  God,  but  therein  has 
also  found  himself.  In  discovering  his  relations  to  God  he  has 
discovered  the  true  greatness  of  himself,  his  highest  possibilities, 
his  real  good,  his  eternal  life.  He  has  also  discovered  what  is 
the  true  glory  and  good  of  mankind  ;  and  in  whatever  sphere  of 
life  he  may  be,  he  becomes  a  witness  for  God  to  testify  of  God 
to  men,  and  to  convince  them  that  only  in  knowing  him  can 
they  know  what  is  greatest  and  best  in  themselves,  and  what  is 
of  true  and  imperishable  worth  in  human  life. 

6.  Here  the  objection  is  urged  that  it  is  absurd  to  suppose 
that  God,  the  absolute  and  infinite,  can  present  himself  in  the 
consciousness  of  a  finite  mind. 

The  theist  agrees  with  the  objector  that  it  is  absurd  that  a 
finite  mind  should  have  complete  knowledge  of  the  absoluteness, 
the  infinitude  of  God.  God  alone  knows  God  in  completeness. 
But  since  the  absolute  Being  has  positive  qualities  and  not 
merely  negative,  it  is  possible  to  have  a  positive  and  real,  though 
incomplete,  knowledge  of  him.  We  have  positive  knowledge  of 
him  as  Spirit,  supernatural  like  ourselves.  We  can  know  that 
he  is  unconditioned  or  absolute.  But  what  the  absoluteness  is 
we  can  know  only  negatively,  by  denying  his  dependence  on  any¬ 
thing  independent  of  himself,  and  his  limitation  in  time,  space 
or  quantity.  And  because  God  is  a  Spirit,  there  is  nothing  in 
his  absoluteness  making  it  impossible  for  him  to  reveal  himself 
as  spirit  in  the  consciousness  of  a  finite  mind,  and  to  be  posi¬ 
tively  though  incompletely  known.  A  babe  is  incompetent  to 
have  a  full  knowledge  of  what  its  mother  is.  But  she  is  re¬ 
vealing  herself  to  it  every  day,  and  more  and  more,  as  its  mind 
expands,  it  knows  her.  All  knowledge  begins  in  spontaneous 
belief  ;  a  nucleus  of  knowledge  within  a  periphery  of  indefinite¬ 
ness  opening  room  for  opinion,  conjecture  and  error  in  thought, 
and  for  progressive  enlargement  of  knowledge. 

So  the  spontaneous  belief  in  a  divinity  arises  in  the  experience 


96 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


of  men.  When  defined  and  tested  even  as  it  exists  in  the  rudest 
men,  it  is  found  to  contain  at  least  the  consciousness,  however 
dim,  of  a  supernatural  and  superhuman  being  or  beings,  which  is 
a  nucleus  of  knowledge;  and  around  it  a  periphery  of  indefinite¬ 
ness  which  opens  room  for  opinion  and  conjecture,  for  fancy  and 
error,  as  to  what  the  being  is  in  detail.  This  nucleus  of  relig¬ 
ious  knowledge  will  be  gradually  enlarged  as  God  continuously 
reveals  himself  in  nature  and  in  man,  and  is  known  in  the  expe¬ 
rience  of  the  individual  and  the  history  of  mankind,  and  as  man 
continues  to  define  and  test  his  spontaneous  beliefs  in  thought,  to 
set  aside  the  false,  to  leave  the  doubtful  for  the  present  as  opin¬ 
ion,  and  to  verify  the  others  as  true  and  so  transform  them  into 
definite  knowledge. 

This  is  the  true  Christian  agnosticism.  From  the  greatness  of 
what  is  known  of  God  we  become  the  more  conscious  of  the  tran¬ 
scendent  mystery  and  incomprehensibleness  of  his  being;  the 
wider  area  of  the  known  makes  visible  a  larger  horizon  of  the 
unknown. 

It  appears,  therefore,  that  God  is  presented  or  revealed  in  con¬ 
sciousness  as  really  as  a  finite  tiling  or  person  is ;  and  that  the 
limitations  of  our  immediate  knowledge  of  God  are  analogous  to 
the  limitations  of  our  immediate  knowledge  of  a  finite  thing  or 
person.  We  know  the  one  as  really  as  the  other  in  consciousness  ; 
and  in  the  one  as  really  as  the  other  it  is  through  impressions  and 
indications  made  in  consciousness  by  the  object  that  the  mind  in 
its  reaction  knows  the  being.  In  the  constancy  of  the  action  on 
us  of  finite  persons  and  things  we  forget  that  we  know  them 
through  impressions  which  they  make  in  our  consciousness,  in 
which  the  mind  in  its  reaction  perceives  them,  and  imagine  that 
somehow  we  have  a  sure  knowledge  of  them,  such  as  we  cannot 
have  of  God.  But  our  knowledge  of  God  is  in  the  same  way 
through  impressions  and  indications  in  consciousness  of  his  pres¬ 
ence  and  action,  and  in  eacli  case  the  mind  perceives  the  being 
through  these.  It  is  true  that  finite  persons  and  things  affect  us 
in  part  sensibly,  and  God  only  spiritually ;  but  not  that  our 
knowledge  of  the  former  is  immediate  and  of  the  latter  is  not. 
The  spiritual  is  deeper  in  our  being  than  the  physical  and  sensi¬ 
ble.  If  the  spiritual  wants,  on  the  satisfaction  of  which  our  spir¬ 
itual  life  depends,  were  as  obtrusive  and  obstreperous  as  the  nat¬ 
ural  wants,  on  the  satisfaction  of  which  the  natural  life  depends, 
if  God’s  touch  were  on  the  body  instead  of  on  the  spirit,  if  he 
shone  in  our  eyes  instead  of  in  our  hearts,  if  his  grace  spoke  in 


MAN’S  CAPACITY  TO  RECEIVE  GOD’S  REVELATION.  97 


the  ear  instead  of  in  the  silence  of  the  spirit,  we  should  think  our 
knowledge  of  him  as  immediate  as  of  the  sun  when  it  shines  on 
us  and  of  our  friends  when  they  speak  to  us.  But  the  influences 
of  the  Spirit  of  God  do  not  fall  on  the  senses,  but  on  the  spirit. 
The  natural  man  with  his  natural  senses  and  sensibilities  “  re- 
ceiveth  not  the  things  of  the  Spirit  of  God,  neither  can  he  know 
them,  because  they  are  spiritually  discerned.”  But  the  human 
spirit's  knowledge  of  the  things  of  the  divine  Spirit  is  as  immedi¬ 
ate  and  real  as  the  natural  man’s  knowledge  through  the  senses 
of  the  things  of  nature. 

7.  Another  objection  is  that,  however  man’s  belief  in  God 
arises,  it  can  never  become  knowledge,  but  must  remain  always 
a  mere  subjective  belief.  Agnostics,  materialists  and  skeptics, 
who  acknowledge  man’s  constitutional  religiousness,  acknowl¬ 
edge  that  he  may  have  a  belief  in  a  god,  but  deny  that  it  can 
become  knowledge.  Theists  sometimes  so  distinguish  belief 
in  God  from  the  knowledge  of  him  as  to  imply  that  the  belief 
can  never  become  knowledge. 

The  first  question  is,  What  do  they  mean  by  belief?  For  as 
in  the  case  of  the  faith-faculty,  the  term  is  not  clearly  defined. 
Elaborate  essays  have  been  written  on  the  distinction  between 
belief  and  knowledge  without  making  clear  what  the  distinction 
is  or  securing  for  it  any  fixedness  of  meaning.  In  literary  and 
philosophical  usage  there  is  a  great  diversity  in  the  meanings  at¬ 
tached  to  belief  as  distinguished  from  knowledge. 

Belief  is  used  to  denote  assent  resting  on  testimony  as  distin¬ 
guished  from  perceptive  or  ratiocinated  knowledge. 

Especially  it  has  been  used  in  theology  to  denote  assent  rest¬ 
ing  on  the  authority  of  the  Bible  as  the  word  of  God ;  or  on  the 
authority  of  the  church  as  supposed  to  declare  the  meaning  of 
God’s  word.  Here  a  moral  element  enters  into  the  belief.  It 
includes  the  act  of  the  will  trusting  God,  or  the  church,  as  au¬ 
thoritative. 

Belief  is  also  used  to  mean  subjective  assent.  In  distinction 
from  this,  knowledge  would  be  an  assent  founded  on  the  action 
of  some  object  on  the  man  revealing  itself  in  his  consciousness, 
on  the  reaction  of  the  mind  perceiving  the  object,  and  on  the  fur¬ 
ther  action  of  the  mind  apprehending  and  defining  the  object 
and  comprehending  it  in  unity  with  other  things  by  ascertaining 
its  relations  to  them.  But  the  subjective  assent  is  an  element 
essential  in  all  knowledge  however  elaborated,  and  without  it 

there  cannot  be  any  knowledge.  On  the  other  hand,  the  sim- 

7 


98 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


plest  subjective  assent  implies  at  least  the  presentation  of  some 
object  in  consciousness  and  the  reaction  of  the  mind  on  it  in 
perceiving  it. 

Belief  or  faith  is  also  used  to  denote  the  self-evident,  spontane¬ 
ous  knowledge  arising  in  presentative  and  rational  intuition  and 
in  memory.  But  this  belief  is  not  distinct  from  knowledge.  It 
is  knowledge  in  its  nascent  state.  It  is  the  primitive  knowledge 
on  which  all  knowledge  elaborated  in  thought  depends.  It  fur¬ 
nishes  the  material  about  which  we  think  and  the  laws  which 
regulate  the  thinking. 

Assent  arising  from  the  practical  experience  of  life  is  some¬ 
times  called  belief,  as  distinguished  from  knowledge.  By  expe¬ 
rience,  for  example,  we  learn  what  are  the  issues  of  certain  lines 
of  conduct  and  what  principles  must  regulate  action  in  order  to 
attain  the  highest  ends  of  life.  But  beliefs  thus  arising  are  often 
the  most  certain  knowledge.  It  is  for  beliefs  thus  springing  out 
of  the  practical  experience  of  life  and  intertwined  with  all  human 
interests  that  a  man  may  be  ready  to  die  a  martyr. 

Evidently,  then,  the  objection  has  no  force,  because  belief,  as 
distinguished  from  knowledge,  is  used  in  so  many  different  senses, 
and  those  who  urge  the  objection  use  the  word  without  discrim¬ 
inating  between  its  various  meanings,  and  in  their  arguing  pass 
interchangeably  from  one  meaning  to  another. 

It  must  also  be  noticed  that  in  each  of  the  meanings  belief  is 
not  in  antithesis  to  knowledge,  but  is  itself  knowledge  in  a  par¬ 
ticular  aspect ;  and  at  least  in  the  third  and  fourth  meanings  is 
essential  to  all  knowledge.  In  each  it  may  be  the  intellectual 
equivalent  of  reality ;  and  knowledge  can  be  no  more. 

If,  indeed,  belief  in  God  springs  from  a  special  faith-faculty, 
then  it  may  be  distinguished  from  knowledge  and  in  antithesis 
to  it.  But  there  is  no  evidence  of  the  existence  of  such  a  fac¬ 
ulty. 

And  we  find,  further,  that  scientific  knowledge  itself  begins 
in  faith  or  belief  and  rests  on  “  assumptions  ”  as  really  as  the¬ 
ism  does.  The  objector  says:  “Theology,  which  develops  its 
knowledge  from  faith,  and  is  itself  a  belief  only,  is  therefore  no 
science  at  all,  inasmuch  as  science  must  be  independent  of  faith 
and  is  developed  apart  from  all  assumptions.”  No  statement  as 
to  science  could  well  be  further  from  the  fact.  The  scientist’s 
knowledge  of  the  physical  realities  about  which  he  thinks,  of 
himself  the  thinker,  and  of  all  the  principles  which  regulate  his 
thinking  and  give  validity  to  his  conclusions,  rests  entirely  on 


MAN’S  CAPACITY  TO  RECEIVE  GOD’S  REVELATION.  99 


self-evident,  unproved  and  improvable  belief.  It  is  spontaneous 
belief  developed  by  thought.  As  Ulrici  says  truly  :  “  Always  in 
science,  knowledge  (  Wissen)  and  belief  ( Glauben ),  far  from  a 
severe  separation,  are  in  the  closest  connection  even  in  the  exact- 
est  sciences ;  a  great  part  of  our  scientific  knowledge  QErkennt- 
niss')  really  belongs  not  to  knowledge  (  Wissen ),  but  to  the  sphere 
of  belief.  It  is,  in  fact,  only  the  thoughtlessness  and  tlie  lack  of 
scientific  accuracy  in  the  thinking  of  modern  investigators  of  na¬ 
ture,  which  leads  them  to  fancy  in  all  their  results,  inferences 
and  presuppositions,  that  they  possess  a  rigorously  exact  knowl¬ 
edge  (  Wissen ),  from  the  height  of  which  they  look  down  on  the 
endeavors  of  philosophy  and  the  other  sciences.” 

On  the  other  hand,  the  knowledge  of  God  begins  as  spontane¬ 
ous  belief  through  God's  revelation  of  himself  in  consciousness 
and  man’s  knowledge  of  him  in  experience,  grows  up  in  the  prac¬ 
tical  experience  of  life  and  intertwines  itself  with  all  man’s  high¬ 
est  interests,  is  scrutinized  and  verified  by  thought,  and  is  thus 
developed  into  knowledge  in  its  most  highly  elaborated  form. 
As  Ulrici  says :  “  Religious  belief  rises  to  the  highest  certainty 
possible,  so  that  for  it  men  sacrifice  property  and  life,  which 
is  rarely  done  for  scientific  knowledge.  This  shows  that  the 
difference  between  belief  and  knowledge  is  not  as  to  the  degree 
of  certainty,  not  quantitative  but  qualitative.  .  .  .  When  relig¬ 
ious  belief  is  developed  by  reflective  thought  to  scientific  belief, 
without  losing  its  living  personal  conviction,  it  is  the  highest 
attainable  form  of  human  knowledge  ( Wissen ),  and  the  most 
perfect  expression  of  genuine  humanity.”  1 

Thus  it  appears  that  man’s  knowledge  of  God  does  not  differ 
as  knowledge  from  his  knowledge  of  the  universe,  but  only  as  to 
the  object  known.  Thus  the  objection  resolves  itself  at  last  into 
the  dogmatic  assumption  that  human  knowledge  is  limited  to  the 
objects  perceived  through  the  senses. 

8.  Theology  is  thought  of  by  many  as  consisting  only  of  ab¬ 
stractions,  as  busying  itself  only  with  general  notions  and  words, 
with  distinctions  and  definitions.  This  mediaeval  tendency  to 
neglect  concrete  thought  for  abstract,  to  make  general  notions 
and  words  the  objects  of  thought  instead  of  concrete  realities,  has 
not  wholly  passed  away  from  theology,2  as  it  has  not  from  other 
lines  of  thought.  But  in  truth  theology  concerns  itself  with  the 
living  God  revealing  himself  in  our  own  consciousness,  in  the 

1  Ulrici;  Glauben  und  Wissen,  pp.  283,  267,  343. 

2  Phil.  Basis  of  Theism,  pp.  54-61. 


100 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


universe,  in  the  history  of  man,  in  Christ  and  the  historical  es¬ 
tablishment  of  his  kingdom  ;  with  man  in  his  relations  to  God, 
to  his  kingdom  and  to  the  spiritual  system  ;  with  all  the  deepest 
realities  of  human  life  and  of  the  universe. 

Under  the  lead  of  physical  science  the  thinking  of  the  present 
day  is  setting  strongly  away  from  words  to  things,  from  the  ab¬ 
stract  to  the  concrete.  But,  as  it  comes  under  the  influence  of 
skepticism  or  materialism,  it  still  misses  the  deepest  reality.  For 
it  excludes  the  spiritual,  and  busies  itself  only  with  what  pre¬ 
sents  itself  to  sense.  It  contents  itself  with  the  mechanism  of 
the  world  without  considering  the  deeper  reality  which  it  reveals. 
It  contents  itself  with  examining  the  binding,  the  print,  the  gen¬ 
eral  getting  up  of  the  book  of  nature,  without  grasping  its  signif¬ 
icance  and  its  design.  Thus  it  falls  into  a  barren  realism  scarcely 
less  superficial  than  the  mediaeval  logomachy.  It  is  satirized  by 
Goethe :  — 

“  He  who  seeks  to  know  a  tiling  well 
Must  first  the  spirit  within  expel  ; 

Then  he  can  count  the  parts  in  his  hand, 

Only  without  the  spiritual  band.” 

Matthew  Arnold  tells  of  a  young  man  at  college  who  turned 
Shakespeare’s  “  Canst  thou  not  minister  to  a  mind  diseased  ?  ” 
into  “  Can  you  not  wait  on  a  lunatic  ?  ”  The  change  strips  off 
the  poetry,  the  sentiment,  the  real  depth  of  woe,  and  leaves  only 
the  physical  disease.  The  current  realism  strips  off  not  the  po¬ 
etry  and  sentiment  only,  but  the  philosophy,  the  religion,  all  that 
belongs  to  the  spiritual.  It  pictures  the  universe  and  life  with¬ 
out  perspective,  with  all  the  flatness  of  a  Chinese  painting. 

Theology  is  not  one-sided  in  excluding  either  the  physical  or 
the  spiritual.  It  does  not  exclude  the  physical  world,  but  reveals 
it  in  its  true  reality  and  its  highest  significance.  It  does  not 
exclude  the  spiritual  world,  but  reveals  it  as  the  deeper  reality 
which  is  manifested  in  nature,  and  to  whose  higher  ends  nature 
is  subordinate ;  in  which  man,  knowing  himself  as  spirit,  finds 
himself  at  home  and  lives  in  intimacy  with  God.  And  his  knowl¬ 
edge  of  God  is  not  vacant  in  empty  thought,  but  is  knowledge  of 
concrete  reality  in  its  fullest  and  richest  significance,  the  knowl¬ 
edge  of  God  and  of  spiritual  realities  given  in  the  experience  of 
life.  This  knowledge  does  not  lie  in  the  mind  as  gold  coins  lie 
in  a  purse,  the  purse  unchanged  and  not  benefited  by  its  contents, 
and  the  coins  having  no  vital  connection  with  the  purse  ;  but  the 
mind  has  taken  it  up  in  the  processes  of  its  own  life  and  growth, 


MAN’S  CAPACITY  TO  RECEIVE  GOD’S  REVELATION.  101 


as  a  living  plant  takes  up  the  soil  and  water  and  transforms  them 
into  its  own  living  organization. 

We  see  then  that  knowledge  is  not  an  empty,  subjective  act, 
but  is  the  subjective  intelligence,  acting  on  a  presented  or  re¬ 
vealed  object,  which  gives  body  and  illuminating  power  to  its  oth¬ 
erwise  thin  and  uneffulgent  flame.  If  the  mind  can  pass  beyond 
all  that  is  immediately  before  the  senses  and  explore  the  uni¬ 
verse,  it  is  because  it  apprehends  planets  and  suns,  molecules  and 
masses,  motions  and  forces,  bodies  and  spirits,  and,  supported  on 
their  substantial  reality,  advances  to  the  knowledge  of  all  that 
is.  So  the  knowledge  of  God  presupposes  a  revelation  of  God. 
It  is  a  revelation  found  by  the  seeker  after  him  in  nature,  in  the 
history  of  mankind,  and  in  Christ,  but  first  of  all  in  the  soul  of 
the  seeker  himself.  We  have  seen  that  God  reveals  himself  in 
the  religious  sentiments  common  to  all  men.  A  Christian  has 
the  clearer  and  larger  revelation  of  God  in  his  purer  and  more 
powerful  experience  of  God’s  presence  and  grace  in  the  Spirit, 
which  testifies  of  Christ  and  brings  the  great  motives  of  God's 
revelation  in  him  to  bear  upon  the  soul.  Thus  the  idea  of  God 
and  the  belief  in  him  is  not  at  the  end,  but  at  the  beginning  of 
the  so-called  proof  of  his  existence.  We  ascertain  the  elements 
which  enter  into  the  idea,  and  the  reasons  why  we  believe  that 
he  exists ;  we  bring  the  grounds  of  the  belief  into  the  light  of 
reason  and  judge  whether  they  are  reasonable;  and  we  find  it 
reasonable  to  believe  that  God  reveals  himself  in  our  experience  ; 
that  we  know  him  as  present  and  acting  within  the  compass  of 
our  own  consciousness.  We  find  him  within  ourselves.  “  No 
man  climbs  to  the  throne  of  God  by  the  pathway  of  the  stars 
who  has  not  first  faced  him  in  the  inner  sanctuary  of  his  own 
soul.”  So  Augustine,  after  his  long  speculations  and  his  strug¬ 
gle  with  speculative  difficulties,  at  last  with  wonder  and  joy 
found  God  revealing  himself  within  his  own  soul.  “  Too  late 
I  loved  thee,  O  Beauty,  ancient  yet  ever  new.  Too  late  I  loved 
thee.  I  searched  for  thee  abroad,  and  thou  wert  within  ;  I, 
deluded,  abroad,  plunging  amid  those  fair  forms  which  thou 
hadst  made.  Thou  wert  with  me  but  I  was  not  with  thee. 
Things  held  me  far  from  thee  which,  unless  they  were  in  thee, 
were  not  at  all.  Thou  didst  call  and  shout  and  burst  my  deaf¬ 
ness.  Thou  didst  flash,  shine  and  scatter  my  blindness.  Thou 
didst  breathe  odors  and  I  drew  in  breath  and  panted  for  thee. 
Thou  touchedst  me  and  I  burned  for  thy  peace.”  1  And  when 

1  Confessions,  bk.  x.,  xxvii.  38. 


102 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


once  we  have  found  him  within,  we  see  all  the  world  full  of  evi- 
dences  of  his  existence,  presence  and  activity.  As  Hawthorne 
beautifully  says :  “  Christian  faith  is  a  grand  cathedral  with  di¬ 
vinely  pictured  windows.  Standing  without,  you  see  no  glory 
nor  can  possibly  imagine  any  ;  standing  within,  every  ray  of 
light  reveals  a  harmony  of  unspeakable  splendors.” 

This  knowledge  of  God  revealing  himself  by  his  gracious  action 
in  the  spiritual  life  within  the  soul  has  often  been  overlooked  by 
modern  writers  on  the  evidence  of  the  existence  of  God.  But  it 
has  been  the  confession,  the  faith  and  the  joy  of  Christ's  spiritual 
disciples  in  all  ages.  Theopliilus,  writing  to  Autolycus,  said  : 
“  If  thou  sayest,  Show  me  thy  God,  I  answer,  Show  me  first  thy 
man,  and  I  will  show  thee  my  God.  Show  me  first  whether  the 
eyes  of  thy  soul  see  and  the  ears  of  thy  heart  hear.  For  as  the 
eyes  of  the  body  perceive  earthly  things,  light  and  darkness,  white 
and  black,  beauty  and  deformity,  and  the  ear  distinguishes  sounds, 
so  the  ears  of  the  heart  and  the  eyes  of  the  soul  can  perceive 
divine  things.  God  is  seen,  by  those  who  can  see  him,  when  they 
open  the  eyes  of  their  soul.  All  men  have  eyes,  but  the  eyes  of 
some  are  blinded  so  that  they  cannot  see  the  light  of  the  sun. 
But  the  sun  does  not  cease  to  shine  because  they  are  blind ; 
they  must  ascribe  it  to  their  blindness  that  they  cannot  see. 
This  is  thy  case,  O  man.  The  eyes  of  thy  soul  are  darkened 
by  sin,  even  by  thy  sinful  actions.  As  a  mirror  must  be  bright, 
so  man’s  soul  must  be  pure.  If  there  be  rust  on  the  mirror  man 
cannot  see  his  face  in  it ;  likewise  if  there  be  sin  in  man’s  soul 
he  cannot  see  God.”  1 

The  necessary  conclusion  is  that  man  is  constituted  with  ca¬ 
pacity  to  receive  revelation  from  God  and  to  know  him  through 
it.  As  on  one  side  of  his  being  he  is  part  and  participant  of  the 
system  of  nature  and  constituted  capable  of  knowing  the  realities 
of  the  physical  world,  so  on  the  personal  side  of  his  being  he  is 
part  and  participant  of  the  spiritual  and  moral  system  and  con¬ 
stituted  capable  of  knowing  the  realities  of  the  spiritual  world. 
As  Quinet  expresses  it :  u  Man  is  drawn  toward  God,  his  cre¬ 
ator,  by  all  the  ties  of  the  soul  and  of  the  body.  The  lion  when 
it  comes  into  being  moves  to  the  desert,  the  eagle  to  the  moun¬ 
tain-tops,  man  to  society,  to  humanity  and  to  God.  Yes  ;  behold, 
the  great  name  is  uttered  ;  and  if  you  do  not  recognize  some 
instinct  to  the  divinity  in  the  heart  of  the  peoples  in  their  cradle, 
all  remains  inexplicable.”  2 

1  Theopliilus  to  Autolycus,  bk.  i.  cliap.  ii. 

2  Edgar  Quinet,  Le  Genie  des  Religions,  p.  28. 


CHAPTER  VI. 


MAN’S  SPIRITUAL  CAPACITIES  NEED  TO  BE  AWAKENED. 

Man’s  power  to  know  God  needs  to  be  aroused  to  action  and 
his  spiritual  vision  clarified  by  the  spiritual  quickening  and  de¬ 
velopment  of  the  man. 

1.  This  may  be  so  because  his  spiritual  powers  are  not  yet 
developed,  or  else  because  they  have  been  voluntarily  neglected 
or  perverted. 

Paul  distinguishes  in  man  the  natural  or  fleshly  from  the  spir¬ 
itual.  This  distinction  is  founded  on  the  fact  that  man  belongs 
alike  to  the  rational  or  spiritual  system  and  to  the  physical  or 
natural.  Thus  he  is  a  natural  or  fleshly  man  and  a  spiritual 
man.  By  the  natural  is  meant  all  which  is  common  to  man 
with  the  brutes  ;  by  the  spiritual  all  that  is  common  to  him  with 
God. 

Here  is  the  basis  of  Paul’s  assertion  that  the  natural  man  can¬ 
not  know  the  things  of  the  spirit,  because  they  are  spiritually 
discerned.  Man  by  his  merely  natural  powers  as  here  defined 
cannot  know  God,  and  through  them  God  cannot  reveal  himself 
to  man.  The  senses  perceive  material  things  but  they  cannot 
perceive  the  spiritual.  Hunger,  thirst,  all  merely  natural  appe¬ 
tites  and  desires,  are  responsive  to  the  touch  of  the  divine  spirit 
no  more  than  miry  clay  to  the  bow  of  a  musician.  They  do  not 
lead  to  God,  nor  even  to  any  life  regulated  by  truth  and  law  and 
directed  to  the  realization  of  rational  ideals  and  ends,  but  only 
to  a  life  seeking  enjoyment  in  the  gratification  of  desires.  Hedon¬ 
ism,  because  itself  is  founded  exclusively  in  the  nature-side  of 
man,  recognizes  this  as  his  highest  life  ;  and  thus,  because  man 
being  rational  cannot  be  blessed  in  nature  alone,  sets  up  Pes¬ 
simism  as  the  true  philosophy.  As  the  brute  can  have  no  knowl¬ 
edge  of  the  spiritual  in  man  nor  even  of  its  own  ignorance  of  it, 
so  man,  by  those  powers  and  susceptibilities  of  nature  which  are 
common  to  him  with  the  brutes,  can  have  no  knowledge  of  God 
nor  even  of  his  own  ignorance  of  him ;  and  equally  no  knowledge 
of  any  distinctively  spiritual  power  or  susceptibility  in  himself. 


104 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


God  reveals  himself  to  spirit  only,  and  by  spirit  only  can  the  rev¬ 
elation  be  received.  The  work  of  God  in  the  heavens  and  the 
earth  may  be  perceived  by  the  senses,  bat  they  do  not  perceive 
God.  They  report  the  outward  form  and  motion  ;  it  is  the  spirit 
that  through  these  perceives  God. 

Here  we  find  in  the  constitution  of  man  a  reason  why  a  spiritual 
awakening  and  development  are  necessary  in  order  that  he  may 
know  God.  The  natural  in  man  precedes  the  development  of 
the  spiritual.  The  spiritual  in  the  human  constitution  lies  poten¬ 
tial  and  dormant  for  a  longer  or  shorter  period,  before  it  begins 
to  reveal  itself  as  an  active  energy.  A  new-born  babe  discloses 
only  the  instincts  and  powers  of  a  little  animal.  The  spiritual 
capacities  are  in  its  constitution.  Dr.  Maudsley,  in  his  Trea¬ 
tise  on  Insanity,  says  that  an  insane  infant  sometimes  shows  a 
precocity  of  seeming  vice  which  reveals  a  potentiality,  a  latent 
power,  which  no  monkey  ever  has.  But  in  the  healthiest  infant 
it  is  only  a  potentiality.  By  its  own  action  the  infantile  spirit 
slowly  develops  its  powers  and  susceptibilities,  educates  its  own 
functions,  and  seems  almost  to  create  itself. 

By  this  precedence  the  sensuous  and  natural  in  man  has  an  ad¬ 
vantage  over  the  spiritual  and  overlays  it.  And  because  the  im¬ 
pulses  of  nature  are  essential  to  the  continuance  of  the  natural 
life,  they  have  an  obtrusiveness,  urgency  and  incessancy  of  in¬ 
fluence,  which  the  spiritual  powers,  as  they  struggle  upward  to 
their  legitimate  supremacy,  at  least  in  the  outset,  cannot  have. 

Analogous  to  the  development  of  the  spirit  in  a  child  is  its  de¬ 
velopment  in  the  history  of  the  race.  The  history  of  man’s  true 
progress  is  the  history  of  his  growing  consciousness  of  his  own 
rational  or  spiritual  powers,  of  the  rise  of  the  spiritual  in  him  to 
ascendency  over  the  natural,  subjecting  his  natural  powers  to 
rational  laws  and  directing  them  to  worthy  ends  ;  of  its  rise  also 
to  ascendency  over  external  nature,  ascertaining  its  laws  and  con¬ 
trolling  its  powers  and  resources  for  the  service  of  man.  The 
history  of  religion  is  the  history  of  the  emergence  of  man  from 
the  life  of  nature  to  the  knowledge  of  God,  and  of  his  progress 
to  a  true  and  spiritual  religion. 

The  spiritual  may  be  further  submerged  beneath  the  natural 
by  man’s  voluntary  action.  He  may  neglect  to  exercise  his  spir¬ 
itual  powers,  so  that  they  become  enfeebled  by  disuse ;  while, 
living  in  the  life  of  nature  exclusively,  all  the  propensities  of  the 
natural  life  are  overgrown.  And  in  a  life  of  selfishness  and 
worldliness,  by  his  voluntary  action  in  sin  he  is  continually  per- 


MAN’S  SPIRITUAL  CAPACITIES  NEED  AWAKENING.  105 


verting  his  powers,  dulling  his  spiritual  susceptibilities,  and  by 
the  whole  force  of  an  evil  character  turning  himself  away  from 
God. 

To  this  it  must  be  added  that  in  a  life  of  selfishness  the  spirit 
of  man  closes  itself  against  the  ever  environing  influences  of 
God’s  grace. 

Man  as  a  created  being  is  always  dependent  on  God.  He  is 
dependent  in  his  rational  and  spiritual  powers  not  less  than  in 
his  physical  organization.  In  his  normal  condition  he  is  always 
receptive  of  divine  influence.  He  is  not  only  constituted  rational, 
in  the  image  of  God,  and  thus  by  his  very  constitution  participant 
in  the  light  of  the  divine  Reason,  but  he  is  also  in  living  commu¬ 
nication  with  God  and  continuously  receiving  the  influx  of  illu¬ 
minating  and  quickening  grace  in  God’s  revelation  of  himself  to 
him.  Only  in  this  union  with  God  does  he  realize  the  normal 
illumination  of  his  mind  and  the  normal  quickening  and  develop¬ 
ment  of  his  spiritual  life.  Christ  declares  this  when  he  says 
that  the  Christian  lives  and  is  fruitful  only  by  union  with  God, 
as  the  branch  by  its  union  with  the  vine. 

By  sin  man  repudiates  his  dependence  as  a  creature  on  God 
and  sets  up  for  himself  in  self-sufficiency,  and  thus  wilfully  closes 
the  channels  through  which  the  ever  environing  grace  of  God 
had  penetrated  his  spirit.  Though  God  continues  to  reveal  him¬ 
self  before  him  and  within  his  consciousness,  he  refuses  to  heed 
the  God  that  comes  to  him  and  to  conform  his  life  to  his  influ¬ 
ence.  The  necessary  result  is  that  more  and  more  the  channels 
of  spiritual  influence  are  dried,  and  his  spiritual  life  withers. 
And  in  this  process  the  revelation  of  God  in  his  consciousness  is 
obstructed  and  his  vision  of  God  is  obscured.  And  this  may  go 
so  far  that  he  loses  all  consciousness  of  his  ignorance  of  God,  and 
of  his  lack  of  all  true  spiritual  life.  He  is  in  the  condition  which 
Paul  describes  in  the  terrific  words,  “  dead  through  your  tres¬ 
passes  and  sins.” 

For  such  a  man  the  first  requisite  for  his  knowing  God  is  that 
his  spiritual  susceptibilities  and  powers  be  awakened,  so  that  he 
may  see  his  separation  from  God  and  the  spiritual  death  which 
he  has  brought  on  himself  thereby,  and  may  turn  to  God  and 
open  his  soul  to  receive  God’s  ever  encompassing  light  and  grace. 

This  is  the  act  of  faith,  which  is  the  condition  of  his  justifica¬ 
tion  before  God.  There  are  but  two  possible  lines  of  human  ac¬ 
tion,  reception  and  production.  In  all  finite  agents  reception 
must  precede  production  ;  all  production  is  conditioned  on  recep- 


106 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


tion.  This  is  the  law  of  mechanics,  of  organic  life  and  growth, 
and  of  man’s  spiritual  life  and  energy.  God  alone  can  produce 
without  having  first  received.  The  act  of  a  person  when  he 
turns  to  God  and  opens  his  soul  to  receive  his  ever  environing 
grace,  is  faith.  This  is  the  condition  of  justification,  because  it 
is  the  only  possible  beginning,  in  a  finite  person,  of  a  right  char¬ 
acter,  of  a  true  spiritual  life,  of  the  illumination  of  his  spirit  in 
the  true  knowledge  of  God,  and  of  that  union  with  God  in  which 
alone  it  is  possible  for  God  to  communicate  to  the  man  the  true 
good,  which  is  primarily  the  perfection  of  his  being. 

This  union  of  God  with  man  through  the  man’s  faith  and  the 
influx  and  indwelling  of  the  divine  Spirit  is  essential  to  the  true 
and  most  complete  knowledge  of  God,  and  is  what  Paul  describes 
as  the  Spirit  of  God  witnessing  with  the  spirit  of  man. 

Thus  separated  from  God  and  submerged  in  fleshly,  worldly 
and  selfish  interests,  the  man  is  deadened  to  spiritual  motives. 
The  religious  life  seems  to  him  unattractive  or  even  positively 
repulsive.  If  you  appeal  to  his  deepest  aspirations,  the  response 
is  only,  “  What  shall  I  eat,  what  shall  I  drink,  and  wherewithal 
shall  I  be  clothed  ?  ”  The  spiritual  life  of  faith  in  God  and  love 
to  God  and  man  does  not  attract  him  as  good.  He  is  attracted 
only  by  what  meets  the  fleshly,  the  worldly  and  the  selfish  de¬ 
mands.  In  his  spiritual  insensibility,  Feuerbach’s  coarse  pun  is 
pertinent  to  him  :  “  Der  Mensch  ist  was  er  isst :  ”  The  man  is 
what  lie  eats.  To  him  the  true  good  appears  as  evil ;  the  real 
evil  appears  as  the  good.  Hence  all  appeals  to  seek  the  higher 
excellence  and  enjoyment  of  the  spiritual  life  fall  powerless  on 
him.  In  illustration  of  this,  Fenelon  has  imagined  a  dialogue 
between  Ulysses  and  Grillus,  whom  Circe  had  turned  into  a  hog. 
Ulysses  wished  to  change  him  back  into  a  man  ;  but  Grillus  had 
no  desire  for  it  and  would  not  consent  to  it.  He  said,  “  The  life 
of  a  hog  is  so  much  pleasanter.”  Among  other  arguments  Ulys¬ 
ses  says  :  “You  then  count  as  nothing  eloquence,  poetry,  mu¬ 
sic  ?  ”  Grillus  could  only  reply  :  “  I  am  so  happy,  I  am  above 
all  these  fine  things.  I  would  rather  grunt  than  be  as  eloquent 
as  you.”  “  But,”  said  Ulysses,  “  how  can  you  endure  this  nauseat¬ 
ing  nastiness  and  stench  ?  ”  And  Grillus  answers  :  “  It  all  de¬ 
pends  on  the  taste  ;  the  odor  is  sweeter  to  me  than  that  of  amber 
and  the  mire  and  filth  are  sweeter  than  nectar.  ”  1 

Hence  in  proportion  as  the  spiritual  life  in  man  is  overlaid  by 
the  sensuous  and  the  material,  his  capacity  for  discerning  and  ap 
1  Dialogues  des  Morts,  vi.  (Euvres,  Paris,  1856,  tom.  ii.  p.  551. 


MAN’S  SPIRITUAL  CAPACITIES  NEED  AWAKENING.  107 


predating  the  spiritual  is  dulled.  At  the  annual  meeting  of  the 
American  Scientific  Association  in  Montreal  in  1882,  a  paper  was 
read  in  which,  as  reported  in  the  morning  papers,  it  was  affirmed 
that  man  is  brother  to  the  tree.  Materialism  recognizes  in  man 
no  powers  different  in  kind  from  those  of  the  brute  ;  necessarily 
it  must  emphasize  his  lower  powers  to  the  neglect  of  the  higher 
powers  distinctive  of  personality,  characterizing  him  as  spirit  and 
allying  him  with  God.  In  the  prevalence  of  religious  unbelief 
in  the  last  century  the  savage  state  was  eulogized  as  that  of  primi¬ 
tive  simplicity  and  happiness,  from  which  in  civilization  man  has 
degenerated.  Of  late  in  discussions  of  morals  the  brutes  are 
sometimes  referred  to  as  exemplifying  the  perfect  right.  We 
also  find  Mr.  Whitman,  in  one  of  his  brawny  meditations,  look¬ 
ing  on  them  as  superior  beings  and  longing  to  live  with  them  :  — 

“  I  think  I  could  turn  and  live  with  animals,  they  are  so  placid  and  self-con¬ 
tained, 

I  stand  and  look  at  them  lono-  and  long. 

They  do  not  sweat  and  whine  about  their  condition, 

They  do  not  lie  awake  in  the  dark  and  weep  for  their  sins, 

They  do  not  make  me  sick  discussing  their  duty  to  God, 

Not  one  is  dissatisfied,  not  one  is  demented  with  the  mania  of  owning  things, 
Not  one  kneels  to  another,  nor  to  his  kind  that  lived  thousands  of  years  ago, 
Not  one  is  respectable  or  unhappy  over  the  whole  earth.” 

Hartmann  reaches  the  same  pessimistic  conclusions  :  “  The  hap¬ 
piest  folk  are  the  rough  savages,  and  of  a  civilized  people  the  un¬ 
cultivated  classes.  Dissatisfaction  increases  proportionally  with 
increasing  culture.  .  .  .  The  poor,  low,  rough  conditions  of  life 
are  happier  than  the  rich,  the  genteel,  the  cultured ;  the  stupid 
are  happier  than  the  bright  and  clever.  .  .  .  Beasts  are  happier, 
that  is,  less  miserable,  than  men,  because  their  overplus  of  dis¬ 
satisfaction  is  less.  Only  think  how  comfortably  an  ox  or  a  hog 
lives,  almost  as  if  it  had  learned  from  Aristotle  to  seek  for  free¬ 
dom  from  care  and  cumber  instead  of,  like  man,  chasing  after 
happiness.  ...  It  is  important  to  make  beast-life  better  known 
to  the  young  as  being  the  most  genuine  source  of  pure  nature, 
wherein  they  may  learn  to  understand  their  own  being  in  a  sim¬ 
ple  form,  and  in  it  revive  and  refresh  themselves  after  the  arti- 
ficialitv  and  distortion  of  our  social  condition.”  1 

«s 

Thus  when  in  a  man  the  spiritual  is  submerged  in  the  sensuous, 
he  can  see  nothing  in  all  the  universe  above  the  life  of  sense.  At 
the  touch  of  science  the  firmament  “  bursts  its  starry  floor  ”  and 

1  Philosophic  des  Unbewussten,  part  C,  xii.  pp.  616,  624,  598  ;  part  B,  xi. 
p.  314;  Ed.  Berlin,  1869. 


108 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


“  opens  on  and  up  ”  —  revealing  to  him  what  ?  Immensity  of 
space  and  time,  vast  masses  of  matter,  innumerable  worlds  and 
systems  of  worlds,  forces  everywhere  active  and  resistless,  mo¬ 
tions  inconceivably  swift,  all  grinding  on  forever  without  intelli¬ 
gence,  plan  or  aim,  without  guidance,  or  wisdom  or  love  ;  behind 
everything  and  behind  all,  mystery  impenetrable  and  the  absolute 
unknowable  ;  and  man,  who  looks  through  it  all  and  confronts 
the  mystery  behind  it,  is  inferior  to  the  beasts  and  a  brother  of 
the  trees. 

What  a  contrast  to  the  reality  disclosing  itself  to  the  Chris¬ 
tian  theist  ;  man  in  the  likeness  of  God,  sending  his  intelligence 
through  all  the  universe,  seeing  God  in  all,  and  everywhere  at 
home  with  God;  God  revealing  himself  in  humanity,  God  in 
Christ  reconciling  the  world  unto  himself  ;  Christ,  the  bright¬ 
ness  of  God’s  glory  and  the  express  image  of  his  person,  the 
Redeemer  of  men  from  sin  and  “  not  ashamed  to  call  them  breth¬ 
ren  ;  ”  and  man  thus  redeemed,  destined  through  endless  time  to 
“  be  forever  with  the  Lord,”  progressively  realizing  all  perfection 
and  good. 

This  completes  the  significance  of  Paul’s  representation  of  the 
natural  man  as  unable  to  know  the  things  of  the  spirit.  He  is 
submerged  in  the  life  of  nature,  and  insensible  to  the  spiritual 
realities  which  encompass  him.  In  the  Scriptures  he  is  said  to 
be  enslaved,  blind,  deaf,  dead  in  sin,  given  up  to  delusions,  and 
believing  lies.  To  such  a  man  the  material  heavens  and  earth 
are  the  great,  the  enduring,  the  real,  while  the  spiritual  is  un¬ 
real,  transitory,  a  phantom  or  a  dream.  And  when  he  looks  on 
men  he  sees  only  animals  of  a  higher  order,  driven  in  all  their 
vast  and  complicated  labors  by  the  resistless  forces  of  nature, 
like  the  plants  in  germinating  and  growing,  like  the  winds  which 
blow  and  the  waters  which  flow.  He  expects  when  he  dies  to 
be  buried  and  to  roll  unconscious  with  the  rolling  earth  ;  and 
while  he  lives  he  is  buried  in  nature  rolling  in  spiritual  uncon¬ 
sciousness  with  the  rolling  earth.  This  is  all  which  the  eye  of 
the  flesh  can  see. 

To  such  a  person  the  Bible  is  as  empty  of  spiritual  meaning 
as  is  nature.  An  American  studying  in  a  German  university  be¬ 
came  intimate  with  a  young  German  who  was  pursuing  archaeo¬ 
logical  studies.  He  did  not  believe  in  Christ  nor  in  God.  He 
could  not  be  induced  to  read  the  Bible,  declaring  that  he  found 
nothing  in  it  which  interested  him.  At  last  the  American 
directed  his  attention  to  the  account  of  the  building  of  the  taber- 


MAN’S  SPIRITUAL  CAPACITIES  NEED  AWAKENING.  109 


nacle  ;  and  the  German  was  so  interested  that  he  sat  up  all  night 
studying  it.  Here  was  a  man  who  found  nothing  to  interest 
him  in  the  history  of  God’s  love  redeeming  men  from  sin,  and 
revealed  in  Christ  and  in  the  establishment  of  his  kingdom  of 
righteousness  and  good  will  on  earth,  as  recorded  in  the  Bible ; 
but  the  whole  capacity  of  his  soul  was  filled  and  flooded  with  the 
description  of  the  architecture  of  the  tabernacle.  Men  as  dry  in 
rationalism  sometimes  write  criticisms  and  commentaries  on  the 
Bible.  But  their  estimate  of  its  significance  is  as  disproportion¬ 
ate  and  as  superficial  as  that  of  this  young  student ;  they  give  the 
grammar  and  the  archgeology,  but  not  the  real  significance  ;  the 
letter  and  the  word,  but  not  the  life  and  power.  Renan  says : 
“  A  man  who  would  write  the  history  of  a  religion  must  have 
believed  it  once,  but  must  believe  it  no  longer.”  He  acknowl¬ 
edges  the  necessity  of  knowing  religion  by  experience  in  order 
rightly  to  describe  or  criticise  it.  But  the  sinking  back  into  dis¬ 
belief  would  be  a  positive  disqualification.  The  competent  critic 
and  interpreter  of  any  religion  may  have  passed  beyond  that 
particular  religion  to  a  higher,  but  must  know  in  his  own  ex¬ 
perience  what  religion  is,  aqd  in  his  own  spiritual  life  and  insight 
be  able  to  sympathize  with  religious  life  and  belief,  however 
crude  the  forms  in  which  they  appear. 

2.  The  power  to  know  God  exists  in  man’s  deepest  spiritual 
insensibility. 

In  an  infant  the  spiritual  powers  exist  only  as  potential,  as  yet 
undeveloped  and  inactive  in  the  constitution  of  the  child  as  a 
personal  being.  They  cannot  at  first  act  and  reveal  themselves 
through  the  infantile  organism  as  yet  imperfectly  developed. 
But  as  the  natural  life  of  the  child  goes  on,  its  spiritual  powers 
begin  to  act.  In  this  action  the  child  gradually  becomes  distinctly 
conscious  of  itself  as  a  person  or  spirit.  The  spirit  “  comes  to 
itself,”  knows  itself  as  spirit,  brings  itself  forth  from  the  life  of 
nature,  and  reveals  itself  to  others. 

As  the  person  advances  in  life  he  may  by  his  own  volun¬ 
tary  action  submerge  the  spiritual  in  him  beneath  the  natural 
and  live  in  spiritual  insensibility.  But  in  the  deepest  insen¬ 
sibility  his  spiritual  powers  remain  imperishable  in  his  constitu¬ 
tion,  and  by  them  he  is  always  free  to  struggle  upward  again 
into  the  spiritual  life,  to  exalt  the  spirit  to  supremacy,  and  to 
direct  his  powers  to  worthy  ends.  His  spiritual  susceptibilities 
stir  within  him,  but  he  takes  no  note  of  their  significance  as  in¬ 
citing  him  to  a  higher  life  and  worthier  ends.  He  chafes  under 


110 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


his  spiritual  capacities  as  they  make  him  conscious  of  duty  and 
of  sin,  and  incapable  of  contentment  in  all  which  the  animal  life 
can  give.  He  envies  the  ox  the  placidity  of  its  rumination  and 
the  hog  the  felicity  of  its  sty,  and  complains  of  his  lot  because  he 
cannot,  like  the  horse,  be  groomed  and  foddered  into  blessedness. 

The  capacity  to  know  God  is  as  persistent  as  the  constitutional 
powers  of  the  spirit.  Of  these  powers  it  is  one,  and  from  them 
it  is  inseparable.  It  can  even  be  in  exercise,  and  effects  of  the 
divine  action  on  the  soul  may  appear  in  consciousness,  without 
the  man’s  recognizing  them  as  manifestations  of  God  or  himself 
as  competent  to  know  God  in  them. 

Analogous  to  this  is  the  fact  that  one  may  believe  that  his 
knowledge  is  limited  to  the  objects  of  sense,  and  may  deny  the 
validity  of  rational  intuitions,  while  all  his  thinking  is  under 
their  regulation,  and  he  feels  rational  motives  and  emotions 
which  presuppose  ideas  dependent  on  the  rational  intuitions.  So 
a  person  may  deny  the  existence  of  free  will,  while  constantly  ex¬ 
ercising  it  and  conscious  of  freedom  and  of  moral  responsibility. 
Sir  James  Fitzjames  Stephen  argues  :  “  If  you  want  me  to  be¬ 
lieve  that  you  possess  faculties  of  which  I  am  destitute,  you  must 
prove  yourself  to  be  my  superior  by  appealing  to  faculties  which 
we  have  in  common.”  He  says  that  a  man  proves  his  own  power 
of  seeing  to  a  blind  man  by  describing  to  him  a  distant  object 
and  then  leading  him  to  it  to  feel  it  with  his  hand.  No  one  can 
object  to  this  maxim  or  to  this  illustration  of  it.  But  he  is  not 
as  successful  in  his  second  illustration.  He  says  that  if  a  man 
claims  to  “  intue  what  is  going  on  in  Sirius,”  we  may  challenge 
him,  in  proof  of  his  power,  to  read  a  column  of  the  Times  across 
the  room.1  But  when  I  claim  that  I  know  by  immediate  intui¬ 
tion  what  is  going  on  in  Sirius,  that  is,  that  I  see  it  luminous  or 
emitting  light,  I  appeal  to  the  same  power  of  immediate  vision 
which  the  objector  himself  exercises,  when  he  “  intues  ”  a  column 
of  the  Times  distant  two  feet  from  his  eye,  or  the  figures  on  the 
wall-paper  across  the  room,  and  which  he  also  exercises  when 
he  “  intues  ”  Sirius  emitting  light.*  For  all  sense-perception  is 
immediate,  presentative  intuition,  self-evident  and  irrefragable, 
and  yet  unproved  and  improvable.  And  when  I  claim  a  power 
of  rational  intuition  by  which  I  know  what  is  beyond  the  range 
of  sense-perception,  I  again  appeal  to  a  power  which  the  objector 
himself  also  has  ;  for  he  knows  that  Sirius  is  a  body  acting  ac- 

1  Article  on  Authority  in  Matters  of  Opinion,  in  Nineteenth  Century,  April, 
1877,  pp.  296,  297. 


MAN’S  SPIRITUAL  CAPACITIES  NEED  AWAKENING.  Ill 


cording  to  the  laws  of  gravitation  and  of  the  persistence  of  force, 
and  that  light  there  is  the  same  kind  of  molecular  action  with 
the  light  which  affects  his  eye  on  earth.  And  he  knows  this  by 
reasoning  which  rests  on  the  validity  of  rational  intuitions.  On 
the  validity  of  these  intuitions,  which  the  objector  denies,  all 
science  rests,  and  the  progress  of  science  and  the  experience  of 
mankind  are  continual  verifications  of  them. 

And  in  affirming  that  we  have  capacity  to  know  God,  and 
that  we  have  experienced  his  gracious  revelation  of  himself  in 
our  own  souls,  we  do  not  appeal  in  confirmation  to  extraordinary 
faculties  which  others  do  not  possess,  but  to  the  powers  and  sus¬ 
ceptibilities  of  personality  common  to  all  men,  and  by  which  all 
men  are  distinguished  from  the  brutes  and  allied  to  God.  If  the 
objector  does  not  know  God,  it  is  either  because  he  has  neglected 
to  exercise  his  spiritual  capacities,  or  by  abnormal  living  has 
brought  them  into  an  abnormal  condition. 

When  a  blind  man  has  once  learned  that  other  people  see,,  he 
is  willing  to  accept  their  testimony  as  to  what  they  see.  The 
testimony  from  age  to  age  of  innumerable  witnesses  to  the 
reality  of  their  knowledge  of  God  in  experience,  would  justify 
the  most  skeptical  in  inquiring  whether  there  may  not  be  some¬ 
thing  in  it.  Afrd  they  will  find,  if  they  seek  God  aright,  that 
the  words  of  an  ancient  prophet  are  the  true  words  of  God  :  “Ye 
shall  seek  me  and  find  me,  when  ye  shall  search  for  me  with  all 
your  heart.”  1 

Against  our  position  that  a  man  may  know  God  in  experience 
through  his  revelation  of  himself  to  the  man  the  objection  is 
urged  that  there  are  multitudes  of  men  who  are  destitute  of  all 
religious  feeling  and  belief.  The  groundlessness  of  this  objec¬ 
tion  is  now  obvious.  In  the  first  place,  the  allegation  of  the 
objection  is  contrary  to  the  facts.  Religion  is  a  common  charac¬ 
teristic  of  humanity.  Atheism  is  sporadic  in  individuals  ;  no 
atheistic  race  or  tribe  or  clan  of  men,  destitute  of  religion,  has 
ever  been  known  to  exist.  In  the  next  place,  agnostics,  materi¬ 
alists  and  atheists  have  the  ideas  of  God  and  religion  ;  they,  for 
the  most  part,  acknowledge  the  constitutional  religiousness  of 
man  and  the  necessity  of  providing  some  satisfactory  object  for 
it,  and  they  disclose  plainly  in  themselves  religious  capacities 
and  susceptibilities  in  exercise.  Lastly,  in  cases  of  the  deepest 
insensibility  to  God,  after  infancy,  we  discover  obvious  evidence 
of  spiritual  powers  active  but  perverted. 

1  Jeremiah  xxix.  13. 


112 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


We  conclude  that  man’s  power  to  know  God  exists  in  his  consti¬ 
tution  and  survives  in  his  deepest  spiritual  insensibility.  It  needs 
only  to  be  awakened  and  rightly  directed.  Its  greatest  possibili¬ 
ties  are  hidden  even  from  the  person  himself,  because  he  has  not 
exercised  it  according  to  the  law  of  his  being,  which  is  the  law  of 
universal  love.  Under  new  influences  or  in  some  new  emer¬ 
gency,  it  may  be  quickened  into  activity,  and  thus  at  once  reveal 
to  him  God,  and  himself  as  related  to  God  and  capable  of  know¬ 
ing  him.  A  closed  piano  reveals  itself  only  as  a  piece  of  elabo¬ 
rate  cabinet-work.  On  opening  it  and  studying  its  construction 
we  may  learn  something  theoretically  as  to  its  real  and  higher 
design.  An  ordinary  player  reveals  to  the  ear  something  of  its 
musical  power.  A  Liszt  touches  it  and  enraptures  the  listeners 
by  revealing  musical  capacities  in  the  instrument  never  before 
disclosed.  So  in  man  there  are  hidden  capacities  for  knowing, 
feeling  and  efficiency,  which  new  influences  and  emergencies 
may  bring  to  light.  A  great  orator  plays  on  an  audience  as  a 
musical  genius  plays  on  an  instrument,  bringing  out  all  its  pow¬ 
ers.  They  sit  down  calmly  before  him,  chatting  about  indiffer¬ 
ent  things  ;  he  awakens  and  convinces  their  intellects,  new  ideas 
break  in  on  them  and  things  are  seen  in  a  new  light :  he  rouses 
their  feelings,  they  weep,  they  laugh,  they  are  indignant ;  he 
persuades  their  wills,  they  make  high  resolves,  they  put  forth 
new  energies.  He  has  revealed  themselves  to  them.  A  great 
genius  in  literature  or  art,  in  discovery  or  invention,  makes  men 
see  in  common  things  a  significance  and  beauty,  a  fact  or  law,  a 
power  and  use,  which  had  never  been  seen  before.  A  reformer 
or  prophet  reveals  an  application  of  moral  truth  which  rouses  a 
whole  people,  and  inspires  them  to  great  enterprises.  Great 
emergencies,  like  the  late  civil  war  in  the  United  States,  reveal 
to  a  people,  to  the  surprise  of  other  peoples  and  of  themselves, 
capacities,  never  before  called  forth,  for  inspiration  with  the  no¬ 
blest  sentiments  and  the  loftiest  enthusiasm,  for  willing  self-sac¬ 
rifice,  for  heroic  enterprise,  energy  and  endurance. 

It  is  a  law  of  human  nature  that  a  power  is  enfeebled  by  dis¬ 
use  or  abuse,  but  is  developed  by  exercise  and  training  accordant 
with  the  laws  of  man’s  being.  Muscular  power  astonishes  us  by 
the  revelation  of  its  hidden  capabilities  in  the  dexterity  of  the 
skilled  workman,  in  Winship  lifting  almost  a  ton,  in  swimmers, 
gymnasts  and  other  athletes.  The  eye,  the  ear,  the  finger’s  end. 
have  hidden  powers  of  perception  astonishing  when  revealed  by 
training.  The  tactual  perception  of  the  blind  seems  scarcely 


MAN'S  SPIRITUAL  CAPACITIES  NEED  AWAKENING.  113 


less  than  a  new  sense.  The  greatest  musical  genius  cannot  re¬ 
veal  the  hidden  powers  of  a  musical  instrument  to  one  who  has 
no  musical  taste  and  culture.  But  such  a  person  can  be  trained 
to  an  appreciation  of  it.  The  power  to  appreciate  the  beautiful 
in  nature  and  art  is  developed  by  education  and  culture.  The 
same  is  true  of  human  powers  and  susceptibilities  in  every  line 
of  action.  They  are  developed  by  exercise.  The  result  is  often 
so  wonderful  that  it  seems  like  the  creation  of  a  new  faculty. 
Hence,  when  one  who  knew  a  person  as  a  boy  in  his  rustic  home 
meets  him,  years  afterwards,  a  cultivated  and  well  developed 
man  in  some  position  of  commanding  influence,  he  can  hardly 
believe  him  the  same  person.  And  it  is  this  law  of  development 
by  exercise  and  training  which  determines  the  difference  between 
the  dreary  simplicity  and  monotony  of  savage  life  and  the  rich 
variety  of  susceptibilities  and  powers  which  constitute  the  many- 
sidedness  of  the  civilized  man. 

This  principle  is  equally  true  of  man’s  spiritual  power  of  know¬ 
ing  God.  One  may  assert  that  he  has  no  knowledge  of  God ; 
that  he  never  had  any  experience  of  God’s  presence,  or  of  his  ac¬ 
tion  or  influence  on  him,  or  of  his  revealing  himself  to  him  in  any 
way  ;  he  may  say  that  he  has  “  no  faculty  nor  rudiment  of  a  fac¬ 
ulty,”  by  which  he  can  know  him ;  that  he  is  unaware  of  any 
faith  or  feeling  by  which  he  can  come  into  communication  with 
God  or  an y  conscious  contact  or  relation  with  him.  But  this 
does  not  prove  that  the  man  is  destitute  of  such  power,  any  more 
than  the  unconsciousness  of  any  other  power  or  susceptibility  un¬ 
developed  or  decayed  through  lack  of  exercise,  proves  that  the 
man  is  not  constitutionally  endowed  with  it  and  that  it  is  not  now 
latent  within  him.  On  studying  his  constitution,  we  find  that 
he  is  constituted  for  spiritual  ends  as  plainly  as  the  mute  piano  is 
found  to  be  constituted  for  music ;  and  that  he  gives  some  expres¬ 
sions,  however  rude  or  perverted,  of  his  spiritual  capacities.  And 
quickened  by  appropriate  influences,  this  same  man  may  come  to 
reveal  capacities  of  spiritual  vision,  feeling  and  energy  like  those 
of  saints  and  martyrs.  But  as  yet  he  stands  mute,  incased  in 
nature,  giving  no  utterance  to  the  spiritual  harmonies  of  which 
he  is  capable,  and  himself  oblivious  of  these  higher  possibilities 
of  his  being.  As,  when  the  body  sleeps,  the  avenues  of  commu¬ 
nication  with  the  outward  world  are  temporarily  closed  and  all 
its  realities  are  seen  only  as  transient  dreams,  so  in  spiritual  slum¬ 
ber  the  avenues  of  communication  with  God  and  the  spiritual 

world  are  closed  and  all  spiritual  realities  are  seen,  if  at  all,  only 

8 


114 


THE  SELF-RE YELATION  OF  GOD. 


as  dreams.  To  such  a  man  a  spiritual  awakening  is  necessary 
that  he  may  know  God  and  see  the  reality  of  spiritual  things. 
There  is  no  lack  of  constitutional  capacity  to  know  God,  just  as 
there  is  no  lack  of  constitutional  capacity  to  appreciate  beauty,  in 
the  boor  who  despises  his  wife’s  flowers  as  only  weeds  or  in  the 
worldling  who,  intent  on  fashionable  ostentation,  values  his  pic¬ 
ture-frames  more  than  the  pictures  ;  and  no  lack  of  constitutional 
capacity  to  do  good  in  the  millionaire  who,  at  the  death  of  a 
wealthy  townsman  distinguished  for  munificent  beneficence  dur¬ 
ing  his  life,  could  sum  up  his  estimate  of  the  man  and  his  life 
only  by  saying,  “  He  never  knew  the  value  of  money.”  In  each 
the  latent  faculty  needs  only  to  be  awakened  and  developed. 

3.  Christianity  teaches  that  God  in  his  love  to  man  brings  on 
him  the  gracious  influence  of  his  Spirit  to  awaken  him  from  his 
spiritual  insensibility  and  to  renew  and  develop  the  spiritual  life. 

This  awakening  can  be  effected  only  as,  through  his  conscience 
and  his  other  spiritual  susceptibilities  and  powers,  he  is  aroused 
to  see  the  sin  and  evil  into  which  he  has  plunged  himself,  and  to 
begin  to  appreciate  the  higher  life  possible  to  him  in  his  relation 
to  God  and  to  the  spiritual  realities  of  which  his  senses  give  him 
no  perception,  —  a  life  so  grand  in  itself  that  its  realization  is  his 
highest  good  and  his  worthiest  end  of  pursuit :  u  Der  Zweck  des 
Lebens  ist  das  Leben  selbst.” 

This  awakening  comes  from  the  Spirit  of  God,  who  brings  on 
men  the  influences  of  God’s  redeeming  love  in  Christ  to  turn 
them  from  their  sin,  to  rouse  them  from  the  life  of  the  natural 
or  fleshly  man  to  the  life  of  the  spirit.  When  a  man  is  thus 
awakened  to  know  God  and  therein  to  know  himself  in  his  true 
character,  if  he  turns  from  his  selfishness  to  the  life  of  faith  in 
God  and  of  love  to  God  and  man,  he  therein  experiences  the 
change  which  is  described  in  the  Scriptures  by  the  most  extraor¬ 
dinary  terms,  a  passing  from  darkness  to  light,  an  opening  of 
blind  eyes,  a  new  birth,  a  quickening  of  the  dead  to  life,  a  put¬ 
ting  off  of  the  old  man  and  a  putting  on  of  the  new.  Thus,  as 
Ulrici  says  of  this  renovated  faith  in  God :  “  It  must  well  up 
from  the  inmost  life  of  the  soul;  for  the  inmost  life  of  the  human 
soul  has  its  root  in  God  himself,  while  rooted  in  the  man’s  own 
religious  and  moral  feeling.”1 

In  this  spiritual  renovation,  also,  there  is  no  impartation  of 
any  new  faculty,  no  originating  of  spiritual  powers  not  already 
existing  in  the  human  constitution,  but  only  an  awakening  of  the 

1  Ulrici,  Gott  und  der  Mensch,  p.  725. 


MAN’S  SPIRITUAL  CAPACITIES  NEED  AWAKENING.  115 


spiritual  powers  already  existing  to  tlie  consciousness  of  God  and 
the  direction  of  them  to  him  as  the  supreme  object  of  trust  and 
service. 

4.  When  the  spiritual  powers  are  thus  awakened  and  rightly 
directed,  the  spiritual  knowledge  widens  and  becomes  more  and 
more  the  vision  of  God,  and  is  more  and  more  organized  into  the 
ever  advancing  spiritual  life  and  growth. 

True  culture  requires  not  merely  the  acquisition  of  knowledge 
to  be  held  in  the  intellect  unchanged  as  in  a  lifeless  receptacle  ; 
it  requires  also  its  assimilation,  its  organization  into  spiritual  life, 
growth  and  power.  We  must  transform  thought  into  life;  as  the 
ancients  used  to  say,  when  we  give  grass  to  a  sheep,  we  do  not 
expect  to  get  back  grass,  but  wool.  The  healthy  mind  digests  its 
knowledge  into  its  own  growth  and  gives  it  forth  again  as  life, 
character  and  power.  Lord  Bacon  says :  “  Abeunt  studia  in 
mores.”  He  also  gives  us  the  maxim,  “Truth  prints  goodness.” 
It  is  only  in  the  imprint  of  truth  on  the  heart  that  it  is  clearly 
legible.  The  truths  and  ideals  archetypal  in  the  absolute  Rea¬ 
son  and  expressed  in  the  finite  creation  are  the  constitution  of 
the  universe ;  therefore  these  are  regulative  of  all  thought  and 
efficient  energy ;  therefore  in  a  universe  thus  constituted,  the 
true  ends  of  life  and  the  methods  of  realizing  them  are  deter¬ 
mined  by  the  truth.  To  know  it  speculatively  without  seeing 
and  regarding  its  practical  bearing  as  the  law  of  action  is  not  to 
know  it  as  it  really  is.  It  is  knowledge  one-sided  and  incom¬ 
plete  ;  knowledge  of  half-truths  which,  accepted  as  whole  truths, 
are  positive  errors.  Hence  merely  speculative  inquiry  is  one¬ 
sided  and  unhealthy  ;  it  leads  to  skepticism  in  the  intellect,  dry¬ 
ness  of  heart,  and  irresolution  and  weakness  of  will.  This  gives 
rise  to  the  common  impression  that  a  mere  scholar  is  arid,  and 
practically  unwise,  weak  and  unreliable.  The  skeptic,  the 
merely  speculative  inquirer  about  God,  is  in  the  garden  of 
knowledge  like  Satan  in  Paradise,  who 

“  On  the  tree  of  life, 

The  middle  tree  and  highest  there  that  grew, 

Sat  like  a  cormorant ;  .  .  . 

nor  on  the  virtue  thought 
Of  that  life-giving  plant,  but  only  used 
For  prospect  what  well  used  had  been  the  pledge 
Of  immortality.” 

Three  requisites  have  been  prescribed  as  essential  to  make  a 
theologian  :  “  Meditatio,  oratio,  tentatio,”  —  thinking,  praying, 


116 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


trying.  It  is  not  by  thinking  alone,  by  arguing  with  one’s  self, 
or  by  controversial  discussions  with  others,  but  also  by  praying, 
opening  the  mind  and  heart  to  light  and  warmth  from  the  wis¬ 
dom  and  love  of  God.  So  Augustine  says  :  44  Intelligit,  qui  orando 
pulsat,  non  qui  rixando  obst repit  ad  ostiam  veritatis.”  Nor  is  it 
by  both  of  these  alone,  but  also  by  trying  and  testing  beliefs  in 
the  work  and  conflict  of  life.  We  are  educated  in  the  school  of 
life,  as,  with  faith  in  God  and  love  to  God  and  man,  we  resist 
the  powers  of  wickedness  in  ourselves  and  in  the  world,  and  put 
forth  all  our  energies  in  the  endeavor  to  realize  the  highest  possi¬ 
bilities  of  our  being,  and  to  accomplish  the  utmost  for  the  ad¬ 
vancement  of  Christ’s  kingdom  and  the  reign  of  truth,  righteous¬ 
ness  and  benevolence  throughout  the  world.  Thus  false  beliefs 
are  exposed  by  their  insufficiency,  the  true  are  verified,  and  new 
aspects  and  applications  of  truth  are  discovered. 

Bunyan  gives  graphic  descriptions  of  his  own  struggles  to  ap¬ 
propriate  and  assimilate  spiritual  truths.  Of  one  promise  of  the 
gospel  he  says :  44  If  Satan  and  I  did  ever  strive  for  any  word  of 
God  in  all  my  life,  it  was  for  this  good  word  of  Christ ;  he  at  one 
end  and  I  at  the  other.  Oh,  what  work  we  made.  It  was  for 
this  in  John,  I  say,  that  we  did  so  tug  and  strive  ;  he  pulled  and 
I  pulled ;  but  God  be  praised,  I  overcame  him ;  I  got  sweetness 
out  of  it.”  At  another  time  he  writes :  44  Oh,  one  sentence  of 
Scripture  did  more  afflict  and  terrify  my  mind,  —  I  mean  those 
sentences  that  stood  against  me ;  and  I  sometimes  thought  they 
every  one  did,  —  more,  I  say,  than  an  army  of  forty  thousand 
men  that  might  come  against  me.”  Again  :  44  At  this  time  I  saw 
more  in  these  words,  4  heirs  of  God,’  than  ever  I  shall  be  able  to 
express  while  I  live  in  this  world.”  At  another  time:  44 1  had 
not  sat  above  two  or  three  minutes,  but  that  came  bolting  in  upon 
me,  4  And  to  an  innumerable  company  of  angels ;  ’  and  withal 
the  twelfth  chapter  of  Hebrews,  about  the  Mount  Zion,  was  set 
before  my  eyes.  Then  with  joy  I  told  my  wife,  Oh,  now  I  know. 
It  was  a  blessed  scripture  to  me  for  many  days,  and  through  this 
sentence  the  Lord  led  me  over  and  over,  first  to  this  word  and 
then  to  that,  and  showed  me  wonderful  glory  in  every  one  of 
them.  These  words  have  often  since  that  time  been  great  re¬ 
freshment  to  my  spirit.”  Thus  the  divine  word,  when  it  meets 
a  spiritual  exigency,  discloses  its  own  divine  meaning,  as  an  eter¬ 
nal  truth  or  reality  fitted  in  the  constitution  of  the  universe  to 
the  exigencies  of  a  human  soul  made  to  dwell  in  the  universe ;  it 
becomes  a  word  to  the  heart,  a  life-force  to  the  man.  We  go 


MAN’S  SPIRITUAL  CAPACITIES  NEED  AWAKENING.  117 


among  the  people  and  we  are  wont  to  find  that  those  whose  lives 
have  moral  earnestness  have  their  treasury  of  precious  truths, 
which  in  the  various  exigencies  of  their  lives  have  come  to  them 
as  angels  from  heaven  for  their  help.  It  may  be  a  psalm,  a  pas¬ 
sage  from  the  gospels,  a  strain  of  poetry,  a  clearly  stated  meta¬ 
physical  distinction  which  has  relieved  a  sore  perplexity,  a  golden 
apothegm,  a  far-reaching  principle  of  natural  science,  a  widely 
ramifying  analogy,  some  truth  which  in  some  emergency  of  life 
flashed  light  into  the  inmost  soul,  and  which  ever  since  has  re¬ 
mained  like  a  window,  then  and  there  opened  into  the  unseen, 
through  which  the  light  of  the  eternal  glory  still  streams. 

As  a  man  goes  on  thus  organizing  the  knowledge  of  God  into 
his  own  being  and  growth,  he  not  only  acquires  possession  of  the 
truth  thus  appropriated  and  knows  its  significance  as  bearing  on 
life  and  disclosing  the  concrete  realities  with  which  he  has  to  do, 
but  he  is  always  gaining  thereby  new  capacity  to  receive  the 
revelations  of  God  and  to  know  him  through  them  ;  according 
to  the  old  maxim,  “  Quantum  sumus  scimus,”  we  know  as  much 
as  we  are.  The  more  we  appropriate  the  truth  and  live  by  it, 
and  the  more  we  come  into  the  divine  likeness,  so  much  the  more 
are  we  prepared  to  receive  further  revelations  of  God  and  to 
gain  new  and  richer  knowledge  of  him.  Thus,  when  the  spirit¬ 
ual  powers  of  a  man  have  been  awakened  and  put  in  the  right 
direction,  he  may  go  on  to  continually  larger  and  richer  knowl¬ 
edge  and  approach  more  and  more  to  realizing  in  its  full  signifi¬ 
cance  “the  vision  of  God.” 

Hence,  when  under  the  influence  of  the  divine  Spirit,  man  re¬ 
turns  to  God  and  begins  the  new  life  of  love  to  God  and  man, 
his  love  itself  becomes  the  source  of  new  knowledge  ;  it  opens  to 
him  a  larger  vision  of  God  ;  for  God  is  love.  Thus  being  himself 
rooted  and  grounded  in  love,  he  is  able,  as  Paul  testifies,  to  know 
the  height  and  the  depth,  the  breadth  and  the  length  of  God’s 
love,  which  yet  evermore  surpasses  human  knowledge,  and  to  be 
filled  unto  all  the  fulness  of  God.  Thus  he  brings  himself  and 
his  life  into  harmony  with  God  and  his  law.  He  chooses  God  as 
the  supreme  object  of  trust  and  service.  He  loves  as  God  loves. 
He  brings  his  whole  character  into  harmony  with  God’s  char¬ 
acter  and  his  whole  activity  into  the  line  of  God’s  activity ;  he 
enters  into  God’s  plans,  stands  with  him  for  truth  and  righteous¬ 
ness  and  good-will  against  falsehood,  injustice  and  selfishness  ; 
he  belongs  to  God’s  kingdom  and  is  a  “  fellow-worker  ”  with  him 
in  advancing  its  interests.  He  lives  a  life  of  confidential  inti- 


118 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


macy  with  God,  and  acquaints  himself  with  him  in  daily  commu¬ 
nication  with  him,  in  the  reception  of  his  grace  and  the  indwell¬ 
ing  of  his  spirit.  Thus  he  knows  the  things  which  are  spiritually 
discerned  ;  in  his  love  he  knows  God,  as  mere  intellect  without 
love  cannot ;  it  opens  to  his  vision  the  very  heart  of  God.  He 
can  testify  in  the  words  of  Sidney  Lanier :  — 

“  Sweet  friends, 

Man’s  love  ascends 

To  finer  and  diviner  ends 

Than  man’s  mere  thought  e’er  comprehends.” 

Skeptics  object  that  love  to  God  is  a  bias  hindering  the  dis¬ 
covery  of  the  truth  ;  that  the  inquirer,  if  he  would  be  candid, 
must  strip  off  all  feeling  and  in  complete  indifference  investigate 
in  the  light  of  the  intellect  alone.1  Certainly,  while  the  truth  is 
as  yet  unknown,  there  must  be  candor  and  impartiality  in  inves¬ 
tigating  ;  and  after  it  is  discovered  the  mind  should  be  always 
conscious  of  its  limits  and  open  to  receive  new  knowledge.  But 
also  after  the  truth  is  discovered,  the  love  of  the  truth  implies 
joy  in  it  and  fidelity  to  it  as  regulative  of  conduct.  The  objec¬ 
tion  excludes  this  and  insists  on  persistent  indifference  after  the 
truth  is  known  as  much  as  before.  It  affirms  that  the  love  of 
the  truth  is  indifference  to  it.  This  presupposes  that  truth  can 
never  be  known ;  no  belief  can  have  any  final  authority,  not  even 
the  belief  of  the  existence  of  God,  nor  of  the  reality  of  the  law 
of  love  or  of  any  moral  distinctions,  nor  of  one’s  own  existence 
or  that  of  the  outward  world.  They  who  rest  in  this  objection 
are  logically  universal  skeptics ;  “  they  wait  to  see  the  future 
come,”  indifferent  as  to  what  beliefs  it  may  bring,  because  all 
beliefs  are  essentially  alike  uncertain.  It  is  indifference  which 
rests  on  despair  of  attaining  knowledge.  The  conclusion  would 
be,  that  if  one  has  any  belief  respecting  God  it  disqualifies  him 
for  theological  study ;  that  if  one  is  eminently  pure  and  devout 
in  his  Christian  life  and  earnest  in  his  love  to  God  and  man,  he 
is  most  of  all  incompetent  to  attain  any  real  knowledge  of  God. 
This,  however,  would  not  be  pertinent  to  the  knowledge  of  God 
alone.  It  would  be  equally  true  that  auy  fixed  belief  on  any 
subject,  as  that  the  earth  turns  on  its  axis,  would  make  the  be¬ 
liever  incapable  of  candor  in  further  investigation  and  incompe¬ 
tent  to  attain  any  real  knowledge  on  that  subject.  But  man  is 
constituted,  not  for  inactive  waiting,  but  for  achievement,  there¬ 
fore  not  for  despairing  skepticism,  but  for  energetic  belief.  There- 

1  Phil.  Basis  of  Theism,  pp.  38-43. 


MAN’S  SPIRITUAL  CAPACITIES  NEED  AWAKENING.  119 


fore  it  is  impossible  to  dispart  his  knowledge  from  his  feelings  ; 
and  if  so  disparted  his  knowledge  would  necessarily  be  defective 
and  not  the  true  knowledge  of  the  reality.  Knowledge  com¬ 
monly  bears  on  the  conduct  of  life,  and  disparted  from  this  prac¬ 
tical  bearing  must  be  defective  and  erroneous.  The  most  impor¬ 
tant  part  of  knowledge  is  our  knowledge  of  intelligent  beings  ; 
of  this  the  most  important  part  is  the  knowledge  of  them  in  their 
freedom  of  will  and  their  moral  responsibility  and  relations,  the 
knowledge  of  the  springs  and  motives  of  their  action,  the  ends 
which  they  propose  to  realize,  and  the  principles  which  determine 
their  well-being ;  and  this  knowledge  is  possible  only  to  those 
who  participate  in  the  same  freedom,  act  in  the  same  moral 
sphere,  and  know  in  experience  similar  responsibility  and  motives 
under  the  same  moral  law.  And  since  knowledge  bears  practi¬ 
cally  on  the  conduct  of  life,  the  fact  of  that  bearing  is  an  im¬ 
portant  part  of  the  reality  to  be  known  and  an  important  fact  to 
be  considered  in  weighing  the  evidence  of  the  truth.  He  who  is 
most  in  sympathy  with  truth  and  righteousness  and  God,  is  best 
qualified  to  understand  the  history  of  man.  It  is  the  history  of 
human  feeling  and  passion,  of  choice,  purpose  and  character,  quite 
as  much  as  of  human  thought.  It  is  the  history  of  the  struggles 
of  the  oppressed  against  the  oppressor,  of  wrong  against  right, 
of  selfishness  against  love,  of  laborious  progress  toward  realizing 
higher  ideals.  How  can  such  questions  be  decided  by  dry  intel¬ 
lect  stripped  of  all  feeling,  in  entire  indifference  as  to  which 
principles  prevail  ?  To  prescribe  such  conditions  as  essential  to 
the  search  after  truth  is  both  morally  wrong  and  philosophically 
false.  Love  to  God  is  essential  to  the  highest  knowledge  of  him. 
God  is  love.  Love  moves  the  power  which  sustains,  orders  and 
directs  the  universe  and  determines  the  end  for  which  it  exists. 
That  God  is  love  is  the  greatest  and  most  important  truth  which 
man  can  know.  He  can  know  it  effectively  only  as  he  himself 
loves  like  God  ;  only  as  he  makes  love  to  God  and  man  the  spring 
of  his  own  energies,  the  quickening,  directing  and  beatifying 
power  throughout  the  entire  sphere  of  his  own  activity.  u  Every 
one  that  loveth  is  begotten  of  God,  and  knoweth  God.  He  that 
loveth  not  knoweth  not  God ;  for  God  is  love.” 

5.  From  the  positions  now  attained  we  see  the  reasonableness 
of  the  Christian  doctrine  of  the  witness  of  the  Spirit.  This  the 
reformers  emphasized.  They  taught  that  it  is  through  the  testi¬ 
mony  of  the  Spirit  of  God  in  the  heart  of  man  that  he  comes  to 
the  belief  of  the  existence  of  God,  and  of  the  revelation  of  him  in 


120 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


Christ  ;  that  it  is  through  the  Spirit,  witnessing  in  the  heart  of 
the  devout  seeker  after  God  to  the  divine  truth  in  the  Christian 
Scriptures,  that  he  knows  them  to  be  the  revelation  of  God.  The 
Christian  doctrine  of  the  witness  of  the  Spirit  is  only  a  more  ex¬ 
plicit  enunciation  of  a  truth  implied  in  all  religions.  A  person 
cannot  lift  himself  to  the  knowledge  of  God  by  dint  of  thinking 
alone.  The  same  is  true,  as  we  have  seen,  of  the  knowledge  of 
sensible  objects  and  of  personal  beings.  One  cannot  reach  them 
in  thought  till  they  have  first  presented  themselves  in  his  con¬ 
sciousness  by  their  action  on  him.  So  God  presents  himself  to  a 
man,  besets  him  behind  and  before,  and  lays  his  hand  upon  him. 
To  this  action  of  God  the  human  spirit  responds  recognizing  the 
present  God.  This  general  fact  is  specifically  set  forth  in  the 
Christian  doctrine  of  the  witness  of  the  Spirit.  It  has  occupied 
of  late  a  less  prominent  place  in  Christian  apologetics  and  doc¬ 
trinal  theology  than  in  the  earlier  period  of  the  Reformation. 
But  it  is  a  truth  which  must  be  fundamental  in  all  right  think¬ 
ing  either  in  defense  of  Theism  and  Christianity,  or  in  the  de¬ 
velopment  of  their  doctrines.  As  Hegel  teaches,  finite  things 
act  on  us  through  outward  media,  but  it  is  the  spirit  that  wit¬ 
nesses  of  the  spirit.  The  true  ground  of  spiritual  faith  is  the 
witness  of  the  spirit,  and  the  witness  of  the  spirit  is  in  itself 
spiritually  quickening.  But  it  is  not  merely  the  human  spirit 
that  witnesses  to  the  presence  of  the  divine,  but  also  the  divine 
Spirit  that  witnesses  of  its  own  presence  with  the  human. 


CHAPTER  VII. 


SYNTHESIS  OF  THE  EXPERIENTIAL,  THE  HISTORICAL  AND 
THE  RATIONAL  IN  THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD. 

God  reveals  himself  in  the  consciousness  of  the  individual  and 
is  thus  known  in  experience.  In  this  case  the  effects  through 
which  God  reveals  himself  are  subjective  in  the  consciousness, 
analogous  to  the  affection  of  the  sensorium  through  which  the  ex¬ 
ternal  world  reveals  itself  in  consciousness.  In  addition  to  this, 
as  already  shown,  God  reveals  himself  in  objective  and  external 
effects,  in  the  constitution  and  course  of  nature  and  in  the  con¬ 
stitution  and  history  of  man  ;  and  above  all  in  Christ  and  his 
abiding  Spirit  reconciling  the  world  to  himself  and  establishing 
his  reign  of  righteousness  and  good-will. 

This  objective  revelation  of  God  in  nature,  man  and  Christ,  I 
call  public  or  historical.  It  will  be  the  subject  of  investigation 
in  the  subsequent  Parts  of  this  volume.  But  its  relation  to  the 
revelation  in  consciousness  must  first  be  more  fully  considered. 

By  this  public  or  historical  revelation,  the  revelation  of  God 
in  consciousness  and  the  spontaneous  beliefs  arising  from  it  are 
tested  and  corrected,  and,  so  far  as  true,  verified  and  amplified. 
This  is  done  by  the  processes  of  reflective  thought  in  the  light  of 
the  truths,  laws,  ideals  and  ends  of  reason.  Thus  all  which  may 
be  known  of  God  from  all  sources  is  apprehended,  verified  and 
discriminated,  and  found  to  be  in  unity  and  harmony  in  a  rea¬ 
sonable  system. 

Here  human  reason  enters  into  the  process  and  contributes  an 
element  to  the  knowledge  of  God.  Of  this  theologians  have  often 
manifested  an  unreasonable  jealousy.  Certainly  there  is  no  way 
of  ascertaining  that  a  belief  is  reasonable  except  by  the  use  of 
reason.  In  the  light  of  God’s  historical  revelation  the  spontane¬ 
ous  religious  belief  is  tested  and  verified  negatively.  That  can¬ 
not  be  a  revelation  of  God  which  contradicts  the  universal  princi¬ 
ples  and  laws  of  reason,  or  the  facts  and  laws  of  the  universe. 
The  spontaneous  religious  belief  is  tested  and  verified  by  reason 
positively,  by  showing  its  harmony  with  the  principles  and  laws 


122 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


of  reason,  and  with  the  constitution  of  the  universe  and  its  actual 
facts  and  laws ;  and  by  showing  its  necessity  in  order  to  realize 
the  ideals  and  ends  of  reason  and  to  meet  the  spiritual  needs  of 
man.  It  is  further  tested  by  the  Christian  by  ascertaining  its 
harmony  with  the  revelation  in  Christ  as  recorded  in  the  Bible. 

It  must  be  remembered,  however,  that  human  reason  is  not 
here  represented  as  sufficient  of  itself  and  independent  of  God, 
but  as  knowing  itself,  in  its  normal  condition  and  action,  de¬ 
pendent  on  him  as  the  absolute  Reason  and  receptive  of  his  rev¬ 
elation  of  himself.  So  in  physical  science,  human  reason  does 
not  claim  to  be  sufficient  of  itself  to  know  the  physical  world,  in¬ 
dependent  of  its  action  on  the  mind  ;  on  the  contrary,  reason 
teaches  that  man’s  knowledge  of  the  world  depends  on  the  world’s 
revelation  of  itself  through  the  senses,  and,  as  thus  dependent,  is 
real  and  rational  knowledge. 

There  are  therefore  three  elements  in  the  knowledge  of  God, 
which  may  be  called  the  experiential,  the  historical,  and  the  ra¬ 
tional  or  ideal. 

Theological  knowledge  is  the  comprehension  of  these  three 
elements  in  a  unity  or  synthesis  of  thought.  The  historical  is 
the  medium  for  the  synthesis  of  the  experiential  and  the  rational. 

This  chapter  is  designed  to  show  that  the  synthesis  of  the  three 
is  essential  to  the  true  knowledge  of  God  ;  that,  through  all  di¬ 
gressions  and  regressions,  the  true  progress  of  theology  is  always 
toward  the  completing  of  this  synthesis,  and  is  thus  from  genera¬ 
tion  to  generation  testing,  verifying  and  amplifying  man's  knowl¬ 
edge  of  God  ;  and  that  the  recognition  of  this  is  necessary  to  a 
right  understanding  of  the  movement  and  significance  of  the¬ 
ological  thought  at  the  present  day. 

The  necessity  of  this  synthesis  is  evident  from  the  fact  that 
thought,  which  recognizes  only  one  or  two  of  these  three  elements, 
issues  in  disastrous  error. 

When  the  experiential  belief  withdraws  into  itself,  the  result 
is  mysticism.  When  the  rational  or  ideal  isolates  itself,  the 
first  result  is  dogmatism  ;  the  later  result  is  rationalism.  In 
each  case  the  Bible,  as  the  record  of  God’s  revelation  of  himself, 
recedes  toward  the  background,  and  ultimately  is  disregarded. 
When  the  historical  isolates  itself,  the  result  is  unspiritual  and 
arid  criticism  of  the  Bible,  and  anthropological  and  archaeolog¬ 
ical  investigation. 

1.  Mysticism  is  the  name  of  religious  belief  arising  spontane¬ 
ously  in  the  immediate  experience  or  consciousness  of  God’s  pres- 


THE  EXPERIENTIAL,  HISTORICAL  AND  RATIONAL.  123 


ence  and  action  on  the  spirit,  but  not  apprehended,  discriminated 
and  systemized  in  reflective  thought,  therefore  not  tested  and 
verified  by  the  legitimate  tests  or  criteria  of  knowledge.  It  is 
exemplified  in  the  “  Yoga  ”  of  the  Hindus,  and  it  is  often  said 
that  India  is  its  native  home.  It  may  be  found,  however,  in  all 
the  higher  religions  and  lias  often  made  its  appearance  in  the 
history  of  Christianity. 

Mysticism  is  true  and  strong  in  its  belief  in  the  revelation  of 
God  within  the  consciousness  of  man  and  in  his  immediate  com¬ 
munion  with  God.  Its  weakness  is  that  it  stops  in  this  nebulous 
consciousness,  this  undefined  experience ;  that  it  does  not  turn  on 
it  the  light  of  reason,  nor  investigate  in  thought  its  real  signifi¬ 
cance,  nor  compare  it  with  the  Christian  experience  and  knowl¬ 
edge  of  the  past,  nor  test  it  by  God’s  further  revelation  of  him¬ 
self  in  nature  and  in  the  constitution  and  history  of  man,  and 
in  Christ  as  recorded  in  the  Bible. 

As  thus  one-sided  it  is  prolific  of  errors  and  fraught  with  dan¬ 
gerous  practical  tendencies.  It  has  sunk  into  mere  subjectivity 
and  often  degenerated  into  fanaticism.  And  since  even  a  mystic 
cannot  cease  to  think  and  must  have  some  forms  of  worship  and 
some  intellectual  mold  for  feeling,  he  either  joins  a  party  under 
the  leadership  of  some  hierophant,  or,  like  Madame  Guyon,  ac¬ 
cepts  the  guidance  of  a  spiritual  director  and  the  authority  of  an 
infallible  church,  or,  like  Bokme,  Eckart  and  others,  creates 
strange  theosophies,  sometimes  verging  on  Pantheism.  It  has 
also  sometimes  disclosed  a  tendency  to  sensuousness,  as  in  the 
erotic  language  of  Madame  Guyon ’s  hymns  and  of  some  other 
hymns  and  devotional  literature. 

Because  thus  one-sided,  it  becomes  a  religion  of  emotion.  It 
subsides  into  Quietism ;  it  gives  itself  up  to  meditation  and 
prayer  ;  it  retires  to  deserts  and  monasteries ;  its  strength  is  to 
sit  still.  It  rejoices  in  the  assurance  of  salvation  in  the  next 
world  rather  than  in  helping  men  to  live  right  lives  in  this.  It 
is  introspective ;  it  concentrates  the  energies  on  securing  one’s 
own  peace  and  joy  ;  it  cultivates  ecstasies  and  reports  them  as 
the  highest  result  of  life.  In  its  continuous  introspection,  like 
the  Hindu  “  Yogi  ”  with  his  eye  fixed  in  motionless  contempla¬ 
tion,  it  transforms  its  own  feelings  into  divine  revelations  ;  it  ac¬ 
cepts  them  as  “  the  inner  light  ”  and  lets  it  take  the  place  of  the 
Bible,  of  reason  and  of  common  sense.  It  would  have  any  sudden 
and  inexplicable  impulse  or  emotion  accepted  as  an  inspiration 
of  God  and  followed  as  his  guidance.  This  characteristic  of  mys- 


124 


THE  SELF-RE YELATION  OF  GOD. 


ticism  appears  in  various  forms  in  the  religious  life  of  our  own 
times.  A  woman,  who  supposed  that  she  had  attained  the 
“  higher  Christian  life,”  received  news  of  the  illness  of  her  only 
brother  living  in  a  neighboring  town,  with  a  request  to  come  to 
him.  In  a  day  or  two  she  received  another  message  that  his 
illness  was  pronounced  fatal,  with  a  more  urgent  request  to  come 
to  him.  Soon  after  came  information  of  his  death  and  of  the 
time  of  his  funeral.  But  she  did  not  comply  with  his  repeated 
requests  nor  even  attend  his  funeral,  because  she  had  felt  no  in¬ 
ward  impulse,  and  therefore  believed  herself  not  called  and  drawn 
by  God  to  do  it.  Thus,  as  is  usual  in  fanaticism,  in  thinking 
herself  divine  she  became  inhuman.  Fanaticism  like  this  is  often 
set  forth  as  the  representative  of  the  truth  that  God  reveals  him¬ 
self  to  a  man  by  his  action  on  him  and  is  thus  known  by  the  man 
in  experience  or  consciousness.  This  truth  is  sometimes  rejected 
by  Christian  theists  because  they  confound  it  with  this  fanati¬ 
cism.  But  a  little  consideration  would  show  that  in  denying 
this  truth  they  are  denying  the  fundamental  fact  of  man’s  com¬ 
munion  with  God  which  is  of  the  essence  of  all  religions,  and 
denying  the  influence  of  God’s  Spirit  in  the  human  heart  which 
is  an  essential  truth  of  Christianity. 

Mysticism  also  takes  on  darker  forms  and  becomes  a  religion 
of  awe  and  terror.  God  is  so  great  and  awful  that  one  who  be¬ 
lieves  himself  to  be  in  immediate  communication  with  him  is 
overawed  and  oppressed  by  his  greatness.  Dr.  Bellows  says  that 
God’s  creatures  are  “  scorched  and  shriveled  in  the  glory  of  his 
presence.”  1  Especially  is  this  the  effect  in  the  consciousness  of 
sin  against  him.  “  The  consciousness  of  sin  is  in  itself  not  enno¬ 
bling,  but  the  contrary.  It  is  the  consciousness  of  failure,  of  un¬ 
worthiness,  of  ill-desert.  It  compels  the  substitution  of  self-loath¬ 
ing  and  self-condemnation  for  self-respect.  It  is  the  consciousness 
of  having  no  claim  to  the  approval  of  either  God  or  man.  It  de¬ 
presses  with  fear ;  it  crushes  in  despair.  It  makes  life  a  dread  of 
the  future,  a  despair  of  the  present,  a  lament  for  the  past.  The 
whole  consciousness  becomes  concentrated  in  the  one  daily  and 
doleful  cry  :  4  We  are  all  poor  creatures/  All  religions  necessarily 
intensify  the  sense  of  sin.  They  bring  God  and  the  unseen  world 
and  retribution  close  to  the  soul.  The  first  effect  is  depressing. 
The  presence  of  an  unseen,  mysterious,  everywhere  present  being, 
whom  no  cunning  can  deceive,  no  art  elude,  no  speed  escape  and 
no  power  resist,  paralyzes  the  soul  ;  his  burning  inquisition  for 

1  The  Suspense  of  Faith,  p.  19. 


THE  EXPERIENTIAL,  HISTORICAL  AND  RATIONAL.  125 


sin  terrifies  it.”  1  Thus  is  realized  the  religion  of  fear  which 
darkens  all  the  interests  of  this  life  with  the  terrors  of  the  life  to 
come.  What  is  man  in  the  presence  of  God  ?  What  is  time  in 
comparison  with  eternity  ?  What  all  the  interests  of  this  shift¬ 
ing  scene  compared  with  the  tremendous  realities  of  the  unseen, 
which  are  forever  ?  “  Law  supreme,  universal,  broken  by  all, 

penalty  terrible  and  inevitable,  hang  glooming  and  threatening 
over  the  world.  Beneath  their  shadow  pleasure  is  an  imperti¬ 
nence,  the  interests  of  earthly  life  trivial,  secular  business  an  in¬ 
trusion*,  worldliness  is  driven  out  by  ‘  other-worldliness  ;  ’  ”  the 
sunny  cheerfulness  of  life  is  driven  out  by  the  intensity  of  re¬ 
sponsibility  and  the  dread  of  the  divine  wrath  ;  and  the  religion 
expends  its  whole  energy  in  sacrifice  and  penance  to  appease  the 
offended  divinity. 

If  then  under  this  gloom  and  terror  the  man  supposes  all  his 
sudden  and  powerful  religious  impulses  to  be  inspired  communica¬ 
tions  from  God,  the  door  is  opened  to  the  most  ferocious  fanati¬ 
cism,  in  which  zeal  for  God  may  demand  the  sacrifice  of  men. 
For  what  is  man  in  comparison  with  God,  and  what  man’s  inter¬ 
ests  in  comparison  with  the  interests  of  God’s  kingdom  ?  The 
man  becomes  intolerant  of  dissent,  and  if  he  has  the  power  may 
enforce  conformity  by  putting  dissenters  to  death  or  by  force  of 
arms  in  war.  And  since  God  demands  the  most  precious  things, 
why  may  not  the  devotee  offer  human  sacrifices,  in  obedience  to 
an  imagined  command  of  God  ?  Why  may  not  a  father  offer  his 
own  child  ?  Why  may  not  the  fanatic  believe  himself  inspired 
to  kill  a  person  who,  he  believes,  hinders  God’s  plans  ?  Through 
an  identification  of  such  fanaticism  with  true  religion,  Feuerbach 
goes  even  so  far  as  to  insist  that  it  is  of  the  essence  of  religion  to 
sacrifice  man  to  God :  u  Thus  is  the  moral  sentiment  subverted 
in  religion.  Thus  man  sacrifices  man  to  God.  The  bloody  hu¬ 
man  sacrifice  is  in  fact  only  a  rude,  material  expression  of  the  in¬ 
most  secret  of  religion.”  2 

Therefore  the  truth  that  man  receives  revelation  from  God  and 
knows  him  through  it  in  experience,  and  that  the  beliefs  thus 
arising  are  apprehended,  tested  and  verified,  are  defined  and 
systemized  in  thought,  must  be  distinguished  from  the  mysticism 
which  rests  solely  on  the  feelings  as  the  inspiration  of  the  Al¬ 
mighty,  and  which  regards  these  feelings  as  the  more  certainly 

1  The  Kingdom  of  Christ  on  Earth,  by  Prof.  Samuel  Harris,  pp.  49,  50, 
173,  174. 

2  Wesen  des  Christenthums,  chap,  xxvii. 


126 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


divine,  the  more  they  are  inexplicable  and  unaccountable  to  the 
reason.  The  beliefs  founded  in  mysticism  must  always  remain 
shut  up  in  the  subjectivity  of  an  individual,  so  that  there  may 
be  as  many  religions  as  there  are  persons.  It  reveals  dangerous 
practical  tendencies,  gives  rise  to  various  errors,  to  monstrous 
misconceptions  and  perversions  of  religion,  and  to  prevalent  ob¬ 
jections  and  disbelief  on  the  part  of  many  who  mistake  it  for  the 
true  representation  of  religion.  Hegel  truly  says  that  if  religion 
and  the  belief  in  God  are  rooted  in  feeling  only,  no  knowledge  of 
God  is  possible,  and  materialism  or  some  form  of  atheism  alone 
can  result.  This  is  not  peculiar  to  religion.  In  any  sphere  of 
life,  if  a  man  follows  the  impulse  of  feeling  and  regards  it  as  in¬ 
fallible  all  the  more  because  it  is  inexplicable  and  unaccountable 
to  his  faculties  of  intelligence,  the  issue  will  be  monstrous  errors 
of  belief  and  still  more  monstrous  errors  of  practice.  But  the 
spontaneous  religious  beliefs  are  really  rooted  in  the  whole  spir¬ 
itual  constitution  of  man,  and  are  tested  and  verified  as  real 
knowledge  ;  and  thus  the  evil  practical  tendencies  are  arrested, 
the  misrepresentations  corrected  and  the  objections  of  unbelief 
answered.  The  presence  and  revelation  of  God  and  communion 
with  him,  instead  of  scorching  and  shriveling  man,  are  seen  to 
disclose  his  real  greatness  ;  they  lift  him  to  the  life  of  love  in 
fellowship  with  God  and  realize  in  him  all  the  highest  possibil¬ 
ities  of  his  being.  W e  need  no  longer  sing  :  — 

“  Great  God  how  infinite  art  thou, 

What  worthless  worms  are  we.” 

But  we  find  in  the  greatness  of  God  and  our  intimacy  with  him, 
that  we  are  not  worthless  worms,  but  participants  in  the  divine. 
We  find  that  religion  does  not  sacrifice  men  to  God,  but  that  in 
it  they  “  become  partakers  of  the  divine  nature ;  ”  that  the  only 
sacrifice  is  the  self-sacrificing  love  in  which,  trusting  in  God  and 
inspired  and  strengthened  by  him,  they  serve  their  fellow-men 
and  realize  their  own  perfect  development,  culture  and  blessed¬ 
ness  in  so  doing.  Even  in  the  Middle  Ages,  after  all  which  has 
been  said  of  the  terrors  and  the  depressing  and  oppressing  in¬ 
fluence  of  religion  in  those  centuries,  we  find  evidence  of  its 
contrary  effect,  imperfectly  as  under  prevailing  errors  it  could 
exert  its  full  power.  Mr.  W.  S.  Lilly  says :  “  Nothing  is  more 
striking  than  the  contrast  between  the  peace  and  gladness  which 
breathe  through  the  austerest  mediaeval  verse,  and  the  deep  un- 


THE  EXPERIENTIAL,  HISTORICAL  AND  RATIONAL.  127 


dertone  of  melancholy  that  pervades  the  strain  of  the  most  vo¬ 
luptuous  of  the  ancient  poets.”  1 

2.  The  isolation  of  the  ideal  or  intellectual  element  in  the 
knowledge  of  God  from  the  experiential  and  the  historical  leads 
to  dogmatism  and  ultimately  issues  in  rationalism. 

Systematic  theology  is  a  product  of  the  legitimate  action  of  the 
intellect,  in  the  light  of  reason,  concentrating  its  thought  on  God 
and  his  relations  to  men  in  whatever  way  revealed,  and  thus  at¬ 
taining,  as  far  as  possible,  a  definite,  verified  and  systematic 
knowledge  of  him.  But  when  once  these  doctrines  have  been 
formulated  and  declared,  the  tendency  is  to  treat  them  more  and 
more  as  dogmas  to  be  received  on  authority  ;  and  thus  the  intel¬ 
lectual  element  begins  to  usurp  predominance  and  to  isolate  it¬ 
self  from  the  revelation  of  God  and  from  the  witness  of  his  Spirit 
known  in  the  experience  of  the  individual  and  the  history  of 
man. 

The  legitimate  issue  of  dogmatism  is  rationalism.  Rationalism 
in  theology  passes  through  successive  stages  and  appears  in  vari¬ 
ous  forms.  But  in  all  its  phases  it  is  essentially  the  doctrine  that 
human  reason  is  of  itself  sufficient  to  elicit  all  religious  truth  and 
thereby  to  quicken  and  direct  the  religious  life.  While  mysticism 
rests  on  the  feelings  and  restricts  itself  within  the  spontaneous 
belief  arising  in  experience,  rationalism,  at  the  opposite  extreme, 
would  evolve  all  religious  knowledge  from  pure  thought  and, 
equally  one-sided,  makes  the  intellectual  or  ideal  element  the 
whole.  In  its  earlier  forms  in  Germany,  it  explained  away  the 
miraculous  in  the  Christian  Scriptures,  but  retained  the  historical. 
In  its  later  stages  it  came  to  regard  the  historical  itself  only  as  a 
vehicle  for  moral  and  religious  instruction,  and  its  truth  or  false¬ 
hood  as  a  matter  of  indifference,  if  only  the  speculative  truths 
and  the  moral  precepts  and  motives,  which  the  narrative  con¬ 
veyed,  were  secured.  Strauss  wrote  his  first  Life  of  Jesus  to 
show  that  the  truths  taught  in  the  story  of  his  life  will  lose  noth¬ 
ing  of  their  value,  though  the  story  itself  should  be  found  a  myth 
without  historical  truth.  “  This  is  the  key  to  the  whole  of  Chris- 
tology,  that,  as  subject  of  the  predicate  which  the  church  assigns 
to  Christ,  we  place  instead  of  an  individual,  an  idea  ;  but  an  idea 
which  has  an  existence  in  reality,  not  in  the  mind  only,  like  that 
of  Kant.  .  .  .  And  is  not  the  idea  of  the  unity  of  the  divine  and 
human  natures  a  real  one  in  a  far  higher  sense,  when  I  regard 

1  Supernaturalism  Mediaeval  and  Classical,  Nineteenth  Century,  July, 
1883. 


128 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


the  whole  race  of  mankind  as  its  realization,  than  when  I  single 
ont  one  man  as  its  realization  ?  ”  1  The  result  is  that  to  the  ra¬ 
tionalist,  the  Bible  is  no  longer  the  revelation  of  the  God  of  love  ; 
it  is  only  the  mythical  and  legendary  remains  of  an  ancient  liter¬ 
ature,  in  which  are  some  true  principles  and  some  fine  senti¬ 
ments,  “  rari  nantes  in  gurgite  vasto.”  As  the  process  goes  on, 
the  intellectual  or  ideal  element  comes  to  occupy  the  whole 
ground  ;  philosophy  takes  the  place  of  theology ;  and  in  the  phi¬ 
losophy,  because  it  is  an  attempt  to  solve  the  problem  of  the  uni¬ 
verse  solely  by  subjective  thought,  mental  abstractions  become 
the  objects  of  attention  instead  of  concrete  realities  ;  thought  is 
set  forth  as  the  ultimate  reality  of  the  universe  ;  God  is  resolved 
into  pure  being,  or  pure  activity,  or  the  order  of  the  world,  iden¬ 
tical  with  nothing  or  the  zero  of  thought ;  and  the  evolution  of 
the  universe  is  identified  with  a  process  of  logic. 

This  tendency  in  theology  to  isolate  the  ideal  or  intellectual 
from  the  experiential  and  the  historical,  this  transition  through 
dogmatism  to  rationalism,  is  exemplified  in  the  history  of  Protest¬ 
antism. 

In  the  second  period  of  this  history,  theological  thought  was 
tending  away  from  the  concrete  to  the  abstract ;  from  the  vivid 
conception  of  the  living  God  known  in  experience  as  present  and 
energizing  among  men  to  the  study  of  doctrine  about  God  ;  from 
the  conception  of  inspiration  as  imparting  spiritual  insight  and 
power  to  the  conception  of  it  as  securing  verbal  accuracy  ;  from 
the  conception  of  the  presence  and  witness  of  the-  Spirit,  which 
pervaded  and  dominated  the  thinking  of  the  Reformers,  to  the 
conception  of  the  letter  of  the  Scriptures  as  being  itself  the  wit¬ 
ness  of  the  Spirit,  because  inspired  by  the  Spirit,  and,  as  the 
Formula  Consensus  Helvetica,  the  younger  Buxtorf  and  others 
taught,  even  to  the  Hebrew  vowel-points.2  The  thinking  and 
activity  of  the  church  became  concentrated  on  the  formulating 
and  systemizing  of  doctrine  and  promulgating  creeds  ;  the  intel¬ 
lectual  or  ideal  was  isolated  from  the  experiential  and  historical  ; 
and  the  church  was  broken  into  sects  on  formulas  of  doctrine. 
Thus  was  verified  anew  the  maxim  of  Paul  :  “  The  letter  killeth, 
but  the  Spirit  givetli  life.”  Even  now  we  are  not  free  from  the 

1  Life  of  Jesus,  Trans,  by  M.  Evans,  vol.  ii.  p.  895. 

2  The  Formula  Consensus  Helvetica  declared  that  the  Old  Testament  was 
“inspired  by  God  both  as  to  its  consonants  and  as  to  its  vowels  or  points,  or 
at  least  as  to  the  power  (or  significance)  of  the  points  ;  and  both  as  to  the  mat* 
ter  and  as  to  the  words.” 


THE  EXPERIENTIAL,  HISTORICAL  AND  RATIONAL,  129 


results  of  this  tendency.  In  a  paper  on  “  The  Alleged  Progress 
in  Theology  ”  read  before  an  association  of  ministers  in  Massa¬ 
chusetts  in  1883,  and  afterwards  published,  the  author  says  : 
“  Any  statement  of  theological  doctrines  which  abandons  or  mod¬ 
ifies  the  usual  terminology,  would  be  a  virtual  abandonment  or 
modification  of  the  doctrines  themselves.  Probably  of  no  science, 
excepting  mathematics,  is  it  as  true  that  words  are  things,  as 
of  theology.”  The  movement  of  theological  thought  through 
“  words  ”  to  “  things  ”  is  a  healthy  movement,  even  though,  when 
we  reach  the  “  things,”  we  may  sometimes  find  it  necessary  to 
change  the  “  words.’ * 

This  lapse  into  dogmatism  prepared  the  way  for  rationalism. 
Lessing  taught  that  all  the  truths  revealed  in  the  Bible  would 
eventually  have  been  discovered  by  man  himself,  in  the  progress 
of  human  thought,  if  he  had  been  allowed  time  enough.  By 
giving  the  revelation  God  had  helped  him  and  accelerated  his 
progress  in  discovering  truth.  Such  teaching  had  become  possi¬ 
ble  because  theologians  had  substituted  truth  and  doctrine,  which 
man  might  discover  by  thinking,  for  the  living  God  and  histor¬ 
ical  redemption.  It  would  have  been  impossible  if  the  church 
had  held  fast  the  knowledge  of  the  living  God  revealing  himself 
in  historical  action  in  nature  and  among  men,  and  especially  in 
his  historical  action  in  Christ  redeeming  men  from  sin,  and 
through  all  the  courses  of  history  organizing  out  of  the  world  the 
kingdom  of  righteousness  and  good-will  and  the  reign  of  love, 
under  the  lordship  of  Christ  and  by  the  power  of  the  Spirit. 
By  thinking,  men  may  ascertain,  define  and  systemize  truth  ; 
but  thinking  cannot  give  the  historical  action  of  God.  Thus, 
through  dogmatism,  came  in  upon  Germany  the  rationalism 
under  which,  as  a  long  and  withering  drought,  the  spiritual  life 
of  theological  thought  was  dried  away. 

3.  The  isolation  of  the  historical  element  from  the  experiential 
and  from  all  recognition  of  the  witness  of  the  Spirit  issues  in  the 
study  of  the  religions  and  the  sacred  books  of  mankind  merely 
as  a  branch  of  anthropology.  The  scholarly  study  of  the  Bible 
thus  isolated  becomes  merely  an  arch  geological  investigation  and  a 
criticism  of  ancient  documents.  In  fact,  not  infrequently  this  non¬ 
religious  study  of  the  Bible  starts  with  the  assumption  that  the 
miraculous  is  impossible  and  that  all  in  the  Bible  which  purports 
to  be  a  record  of  a  supernatural  revelation  of  God  is  mythical. 
Thus  by  a  gratuitous  assumption  the  divine  element  is  arbitrarily 

ruled  out  of  the  Bible.  Nothing  then  remains  but  an  ancient 

9 


180 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


literature  and  history,  and  the  only  interest  in  the  study  of  it  is 
critical,  archaeological  and  historical.  Then  the  living  water  has 
dried  away.  Instead  of  a  springing  fountain  we  have  only  a 
well-curb  and  a  bucket ;  instead  of  the  river  of  life  only  the  dry 
bed  of  a  once  running  stream  ;  and  critical  thought  busies  itself 
in  laboriously  tracing  its  dry  and  stony  course.  To  such  a  stu¬ 
dent  the  admonition  of  Faust  to  his  scholar  is  pertinent:  “  Is 
parchment  the  holy  well,  a  drink  from  which  allays  thy  thirst 
forever?  Thou  hast  not  gained  the  cordial  if  it  gushes  not  from 
thy  own  soul.”  Equally  pertinent  are  the  words  of  the  younger 
of  the  Piccolomini  in  Schiller :  — 

“  The  oracle  within  him,  that  which  lives, 

He  must  consult  and  question  —  not  dead  books, 

Not  ordinances,  not  mold-rotted  papers.” 

Important  as  scholarly  criticism  and  interpretation  of  the  Bible 
are,  they  need  not  be  separated  from  the  experiential  and 
rational  elements  in  The  knowledge  of  God,  and  the  witness  of 
God’s  Spirit  within  the  soul.  Devout  scholarship  may  be  as 
scholarly  as  the  undevout.  And  there  is  something  in  the  Bible 
which  mere  scholarship,  however  keen  and  critical,  cannot  see. 
If  the  student  feels  his  spiritual  needs,  if  his  spiritual  sensibili¬ 
ties  are  awakened  and  his  spiritual  powers  active,  God  will  find 
him  and  lie  will  find  God  in  the  study  of  the  Bible.  If  it  is  only 
critical  and  archaeological  interest  which  moves  him,  criticism 
and  archaeology  will  be  all  which  he  will  find. 

It  must  be  further  noticed  that  only  specialists,  whether  devout 
or  undevout,  are  learned  enough  for  this  critical  and  archaeolog¬ 
ical  investigation.  And  if  this  alone  is  to  find  all  there  is  in 
the  Bible,  then  it  is  not  the  book  for  all  the  people,  to  be  read 
and  interpreted  by  their  private  judgment;  but  an  authority  is 
set  up  to  declare  its  meaning.  It  is  only  as  encyclicals  are  issued 
from  some  specialist  in  a  university  that  men  can  know  wdiat  to 
believe.  M.  Bersier,  in  one  of  his  sermons,  speaks  of  this  result 
in  France:  “Many  young  men  believe  that  they  have  said  all 
when  they  appeal  to  criticism.  They  say,  ‘Criticism  has  decided,’ 
with  the  same  confiding  and  tranquil  tone  with  which  others  say, 

‘  The  Church  lias  decided.’  They  think  they  are  exercising  their 
private  judgment  at  the  very  moment  when  they  are  swearing  in 
verba  magistri ,  on  the  faith  which  they  have  in  him.” 

Other  evils  of  isolated  historical  study  and  criticism  are  men¬ 
tioned  by  Reuss ;  and  the  lapse  of  years  since  he  wrote  has  added 
new  exemplifications.  “  As  the  method  became  more  and  more 


THE  EXPERIENTIAL,  HISTORICAL  AND  RATIONAL.  131 


complicated  and  the  estimate  of  arguments  more  and  more  de¬ 
pendent  on  the  subjective  views  of  the  critics,  the  more  impos¬ 
sible  was  agreement.  The  rampant  undergrowth  of  unfruitful 
hypotheses  overspread  and  concealed  the  solid  ground  of  history, 
and  must  be  laboriously  cleared  away  again  ;  skepticism  spread  ; 
acuteness  and  abuse  of  criticism  bordered  close  on  each  other 
and  caused  the  very  principles  of  the  latter  to  be  suspected  ;  and 
it  was  often  true  on  both  sides  in  such  investigations  that  it  was 
not  so  much  the  historical  questions  themselves  as  the  theological 
ones  lying  behind  them  which  assured  to  the  controversy  its 
importance  and  at  the  same  time  its  endlessness.”  1 

On  the  other  hand,  there  is  apparent  a  tendency  to  isolate  the 
historical  revelation  from  rational  thought.  It  is  common  for 
ministers  to  say  that  they  hold  to  the  facts  of  Christianity,  but 
not  to  any  doctrine  or  philosophy  which  results  from  human 
thought  in  defining,  interpreting  and  vindicating  them,  or  in  draw¬ 
ing  inferences  from  them.  They  would  have  the  Biblical  revela¬ 
tion  only,  without  theology.  But  this  is  forbidding  men  to  think 
on  religious  subjects  or  to  use  their  rational  faculties  in  ascertain¬ 
ing  what  God  has  revealed  of  himself  in  the  Bible.  It  also  implies 
a  contradiction  between  the  facts  of  Christianity,  and  the  reason 
of  man  and  all  his  thinking  in  accordance  with  the  principles  of 
reason.  It  is  the  admission  that  Christianity  will  not  bear  the 
scrutiny  of  human  reason,  thought  and  scholarship,  not  even 
when  these  are  exercised  on  it  by  the  most  devout  and  godly 
men ;  and  that  its  facts  and  teachings  cannot  be  comprehended 
by  human  thought  in  any  intelligible  and  reasonable  system. 
Yet  when  these  persons  declare  what  they  believe  to  be  the  reve¬ 
lation  of  the  Bible  respecting  God  in  any  particular,  in  any  words 
other  than  the  very  words  of  the  Bible,  they  are  giving  us  a 
theology  of  their  own.  And  they  are  often  willing  to  get  disci¬ 
ples  who  will  follow  their  isolated  teachings.  Thus  the  question 
is  not  between  religion  without  a  theology  and  religion  with  it. 
It  is  the  question  between  religion  with  a  crude,  narrow  or  erro¬ 
neous  theology,  and  religion  with  a  theology  drawn  from  the  Bi¬ 
ble  with  prayerful,  scholarly,  earnest  and  rational  thought.  The 
issue  of  this  antagonism  to  Christian  intelligence  may  be  in  irre- 
ligion  and  unbelief ;  in  ignorant,  fanciful  or  superstitious  inter¬ 
pretations  2  and  applications  of  the  Scriptures  ;  or  in  what  the 

1  History  of  the  New  Testament,  vol.  ii.  pp.  357,  358,  Trans. 

2  It  is  reported  that  in  a  Sunday-school  in  England,  the  lesson  for  the  day 
mentioned  that  David  rose  from  his  bed  and  walked  on  the  roof  of  his  house. 


132 


THE  SELF-RE  VEL ATION  OF  GOD. 


Bishop  of  Norwich  called  “  maudlin  sentimentalism  with  its  mis- 
erable*disparagement  of  any  definite  doctrine,  a  nerveless  religion 
without  the  sinew  and  bone  of  doctrine.”  Thus  it  opens  the 
way  to  a  false  religion  of  hysterical  fanaticism. 

4.  It  follows  from  what  has  been  said  that  the  true  knowledge 
of  God  can  be  attained  only  in  the  synthesis  of  the  experiential, 
the  historical  and  the  rational  or  ideal. 

Mysticism  is  true  so  far  as  it  insists  on  the  life  of  immediate 
communion  with  God  and  recognizes  God’s  revelation  of  himself 
by  his  action  within  the  conscious  experience  of  the  man.  Its 
error  is  that  it  limits  the  religion  to  the  feelings  instead  of  rec¬ 
ognizing  it  as  rooted  in  the  entire  spiritual  constitution  of  man, 
and  so  shuts  up  the  religious  consciousness  within  this  emotional 
experience,  without  turning  on  it  the  light  of  intelligence  and 
reason.  But  the  Christian  Scriptures  give  no  warrant  for  this 
narrowness.  They  require  that  the  service  which  we  render  to 
God  should  be  a  “  reasonable  service,”  that  is,  a  service  approved, 
guided  and  purified  by  reason.  Their  requirement  is,  “  Be  ready 
always  to  give  answer  to  every  man  that  asketh  you  a  reason 
concerning  the  hope  that  is  in  you.”  Even  in  prophets  they  for¬ 
bid  the  mantic  fury  of  a  heathen  inspiration,  and  teach  that  “  the 
spirits  of  the  prophets  are  subject  to  the  prophets,”  and  that  in 
receiving  alleged  divine  communications  we  must  “  believe  not 
every  spirit,  but  prove  the  spirits  whether  they  are  from  God,” 
and  this  for  the  significant  reason  that  “  God  is  not  a  God  of  con¬ 
fusion.”  1  It  is  preposterous  to  suppose  that  the  Spirit  of  God 
can  reveal  himself  only  through  the  feelings  and  makes  no  use  of 
man’s  reason  and  common  sense,  his  powers  of  reflective  thought 
and  his  already  acquired  knowledge.  And  feeling  cannot  be  the 
ultimate  test  of  truth  ;  for  in  the  light  of  reason  we  must  always 
first  judge  of  the  feelings  themselves  whether  they  are  reasonable 
or  unreasonable,  right  or  wrong.  But  mysticism  turns  away 
from  all  such  proving  and  testing  in  intelligence  as  deadening  to 
the  power  and  life  of  religion.  Thus  it  is,  as  Professor  Pfleiderer 
calls  it,  “a  self -forgetting  and  world -forgetting  God-intoxica- 

A  boy  asked  how  he  could  walk  on  the  roof  without  slipping  off.  The  teacher 
replied  sternly,  “  You  must  not  cavil  at  the  word  of  God.”  At  the  close  of 
the  school,  as  this  teacher  was  leaving  the  room,  another  teacher  who  had 
overheard  the  remark  took  him  by  the  arm  and  said,  “  Brother,  you  did  not 
answer  that  boy  right.  You  should  have  said  to  him,  With  man  it  is  impos¬ 
sible ;  but  with  God  all  things  are  possible.” 

1  Rom.  xii.  1;  I.  Pet.  iii.  15;  I.  John  iv.  1 ;  I.  Cor.  xiv.  32,  33. 


THE  EXPERIENTIAL,  HISTORICAL  AND  RATIONAL.  13B 


tion  ;  ”  and  is,  as  compared  with  the  true  knowledge  of  God,  but 
a  folded  bud,  compared  with  the  blossom  unfolded  and  rich  in 
color  and  fragrance.1  The  result  is  that  mysticism,  while  above 
all  claiming  revelation,  loses  hold  of  the  divine  reality  revealed 
and  retains  in  its  grasp  only  a  subjective  and  empty  conscious¬ 
ness,  a  mere  feeling,  the  object  of  which  is  unknown.  Thus  it 
accepts  for  Christianity  the  very  position  into  which  skepticism 
is  trying  to  crowd  it ;  for  skepticism  admits  that  man  is  constitu¬ 
tionally  endowed  with  religious  susceptibilities,  but  it  insists  that 
the  object  of  these  sensibilities  is  a  creation  of  the  fancy  and  can¬ 
not  be  an  object  of  knowledge. 

Rational  thinking  is  also  essential  to  the  true  and  largest 
knowledge  of  God.  But  unchecked  and  unsubstantiated  by  re¬ 
ligious  experience  and  historical  revelation,  it  becomes  rational¬ 
ism,  runs  wild  in  speculation  and  misses  the  true  knowledge  of 
God. 

The  true  and  largest  knowledge  of  God  is  possible  only  in 
the  synthesis  of  the  experiential,  the  historical  and  the  ideal  or 
rational.  These  must  test,  correct  and  restrain,  and  at  the  same 
time  clarify,  verify  and  supplement  each  other,  and  thus  bring 
their  several  results  into  unity  and  give  the  most  correct  and 
comprehensive  knowledge  of  God.  The  young  student  may  chafe 
under  these  restraints  and  imagine  that  they  repress  the  freedom, 
independence  and  range  of  his  thinking.  But  freedom  is  safe, 
healthy  and  fruitful  only  as  it  is  regulated  by  law.  The  seeming 
restraint  within  which  his  thought  is  circumscribed  is  essential 
to  its  true  freedom  and  its  highest  power.  It  is  fabled  that  the 
beer  working  in  a  bottle  thought  if  it  could  escape  the  confine¬ 
ment  it  would  fill  the  world.  But  when  it  burst  the  confining 
glass,  it  was  as  water  spilled  on  the  ground. 

5.  The  historical  revelation  is  the  medium  through  which  the 
synthesis  of  the  three  is  to  be  attained.  The  Bible  must  be  held 
in  solution  in  theological  thought  and  be  vital  in  spiritual  life. 
Religious  experience  and  theological  thought  both  centre  in  the 
living  Christ.  In  him  is  life  ;  in  him  also  are  hid  all  the  treas¬ 
ures  of  wisdom  and  knowledge.  In  the  sphere  of  religious 
thought  and  life,  he  is  the  centre  in  which  all  the  radii  meet  and 
from  which  they  all  issue. 

Talleyrand,  it  is  said,  once  received  a  deputation  of  theo-phi- 
lanthropists,  who  consulted  him  as  to  the  best  way  of  introducing 
their  proposed  new  religion.  After  hearing  them  he  said,  Gen- 

1  Religionsphilosophie,  p.  307. 


134 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


tlemen,  I  refer  you  to  an  historical  fact  which  may  give  you  some 
light  as  to  the  best  way  to  establish  a  new  religion  in  the  world. 
When  Jesus  Christ  undertook  to  establish  a  new  religion,  he 
was  crucified,  he  lay  in  the  grave  three  days,  he  arose  again  and 
ascended  into  heaven.  If  you  would  succeed,  I  advise  you  to  do 
the  same.  There  is  a  profound  significance  in  this  story.  God 
cannot  be  felt  out  by  feeling  alone,  nor  thought  out  by  thinking 
alone.  Before  all  religious  feeling  and  thought  God  must  in 
some  way  present  himself  in  the  consciousness  of  the  individual 
and  in  the  history  of  man,  as  the  object  of  feeling  and  thought. 
The  world  cannot  be  renovated  nor  its  spiritual  needs  satisfied 
by  the  meditations  of  quietism  nor  the  dreams  and  ecstasies  of 
mysticism,  nor  by  the  speculations  of  thought,  nor  by  culture  and 
“  sweet  reasonableness,’’  nor  by  morality  without  religion,  nor  by 
philanthropy  with  no  relation  to  God  and  no  root  in  the  super¬ 
natural  ;  but  only  by  the  living  God  revealing  himself  by  his 
own  action  in  the  lives  of  individuals  and  the  history  of  man, 
redeeming  men  from  sin  and  establishing  his  kingdom  of  right¬ 
eousness  and  good-will. 

6.  To  attain  this  synthesis  is  the  great  problem  of  all  religious 
thinking. 

In  every  living  organism  we  find  the  unity  of  differences  and 
seeming  incompatibilities  realized  practically  in  the  life.  It  is 
the  problem  of  science  to  apprehend  these  diversities,  to  set  forth 
in  thought  the  unity  of  the  manifold  thus  realized  in  life,  and  to 
discover  and  declare  its  principle  and  law.  Religion  is  the  life  of 
the  spirit  in  which  differences  and  seeming  incompatibilities  ap¬ 
pear  in  unity.  It  is  the  business  of  theology  to  apprehend  and 
set  forth  in  a  unity  of  thought,  the  diversified  truths  and  appli¬ 
cations  of  truth  already  practically  in  unity  in  the  religious  ex¬ 
perience  and  life.  Its  great  problem  is  to  translate  experience 
into  thought,  to  set  forth  spontaneous  beliefs  in  intellectual  forms, 
to  interpret  and  vindicate  them  to  the  reason,  to  show  their  place 
and  significance  in  the  constitution  and  history  of  man,  and  thus 
to  make  it  evident  that  the  synthesis  practically  experienced  in 
the  religious  life  is  apprehended  and  vindicated  in  intelligence  ; 
it  is  to  show  that  the  God  whom  the  Christian  heart  worships  is 
the  God  whose  real  existence  reason  demands  as  necessary  to  any 
reasonable  explanation  of  the  constitution  and  history  of  man,  of 
the  constitution  and  order  of  the  universe,  and  of  its  own  right 
to  believe  itself  rational ;  it  is  to  find  the  synthesis  of  the  abso¬ 
lute  being,  that  philosophy  must  recognize  in  order  to  be  philoso- 


THE  EXPERIENTIAL,  HISTORICAL  AND  RATIONAL.  135 


phy,  with  the  eternal  Spirit,  perfect  in  wisdom  and  love,  that  re¬ 
ligion  recognizes  as  the  object  of  its  trust  and  service. 

In  the  necessity  of  this  synthesis  the  process  of  knowing  the 
spiritual  and  the  supernatural  is  the  same  with  that  of  know¬ 
ing  the  physical.  The  knowledge  of  the  physical  world  begins, 
like  that  of  the  spiritual,  in  intuitions  which  cannot  be  proved 
but  are  known  only  in  their  own  self-evidence.  A  scientist  can 
no  more  prove  that  he  has  real  knowledge  of  physical  realities 
through  sense-perception  than  a  Christian  can  prove  that  he  has 
knowledge  of  spiritual  reality  through  self-consciousness,  or  of 
God  through  experience.  Moreover  in  the  primitive  conscious¬ 
ness  of  the  scientist,  as  of  every  other  man,  factual  realities  and 
rational  principles  lie  together  unformulated  and  undiscriminated 
as  an  unresolved  nebula.  He  can  do  nothing  whatever  to  prove 
that  his  perceptions  give  him  real  knowledge.  All  which  he  can 
do  is  to  apprehend  what  the  perceived  reality  is,  to  distinguish 
the  things  which  are  presented  nebulously  before  him,  and  to 
note  their  reciprocal  relations  ;  he  can  verify  his  perceptions  by 
repeated  observations,  and  by  comparing  them  with  the  observa¬ 
tions  of  others  and  with  the  highest  results  of  human  investiga¬ 
tion  of  the  matter  under  consideration  ;  he  can  bring  all  this 
into  the  light  of  reason  and  under  its  regulating  principles  can 
draw  inferences  and  thus  enlarge  his  knowledge.  By  these  pro¬ 
cesses  he  brings  the  presented  realities  definitely  before  his  mind, 
he  finds  their  differences  and  relations,  their  harmony  with  one 
another  and  with  all  the  principles  of  reason  and  all  the  legiti¬ 
mate  conclusions  of  reasoning  ;  he  brings  it  all  into  harmony  with 
the  whole  scientific  system.  In  this  harmony  and  consistency  his 
mind  moves  up  and  down  through  the  whole  sphere  of  his  knowl¬ 
edge  of  the  matter  in  hand  and  of  its  relations  to  all  that  is 
known,  finding  no  contradiction  or  inconsistency  of  things  with 
each  other  nor  with  the  results  of  his  own  mental  processes ;  then 
he  rests  in  undoubting  conviction  of  their  reality.  Thus  his  con¬ 
tinued  experience  and  thinking  are  a  continued  verification  of  his 
knowledge ;  without  wavering  he  trusts  to  it  the  conduct  of  his 
life.  He  finds  errors  which  he  must  correct  and  deficiencies  of 
knowledge  to  be  supplied  ;  but  the  great  mass  of  his  knowledge 
is  confirmed  by  his  experience  every  day  so  long  as  he  lives.  In 
like  manner  while  the  knowledge  of  mankind  is  cleared  of  errors 
and  enlarged  from  generation  to  generation,  the  great  mass  of  it 
persists  and  is  confirmed  by  the  experience  of  the  race  through 
all  the  ages. 


136 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


The  same  is  true  of  man’s  knowledge  of  the  spiritual,  of  the 
supernatural  and  of  God.  These  realities  reveal  themselves  in  his 
consciousness  in  feelings,  in  moral  duty,  in  the  practical  determi¬ 
nations  of  the  will  in  the  conduct  of  life,  as  well  as  in  his  intel¬ 
lectual  action.  He  examines  them  in  the  light  of  reason  and  ap¬ 
plies  to  them  its  universal  and  necessary  principles.  Step  by  step 
he  apprehends  their  significance,  distinguishes  them  from  physical 
realities  and  finds  their  unity  in  a  moral  and  spiritual  system,  the 
recognition  of  which  is  necessary  to  a  scientific  knowledge  of  the 
system  of  nature.  Thus  by  continued  experience  of  these  spir¬ 
itual  realities  and  continued  thinking  on  them,  the  whole  progress 
of  his  knowledge  is  a  continued  confirmation  of  his  belief  in  the 
spiritual  world,  which  more  and  more  opens  itself  to  his  vision  as 
the  deepest  reality  of  the  universe.  Peacefully  and  without  a 
doubt  he  rests  the  conduct  and  interests  of  his  life  on  the  truth 
of  this  belief.  As  in  physical  knowledge,  he  corrects  errors  and 
supplies  deficiencies ;  but  the  great  facts  of  the  existence  of  a 
divinity  and  a  supernatural  world,  of  moral  law  and  retribution, 
of  the  need  of  the  divine  favor  and  the  necessity  of  worship  per¬ 
sist  unchanged. 

It  follows  that  the  common  objections  to  theological  thinking 
are  unreasonable  and  invalid.  F.  W.  Robertson  gives  the  fol¬ 
lowing  as  a  principle  on  which  he  had  always  taught :  “  Spiritual 
truth  is  discerned  by  the  spirit  instead  of  intellectually  in  prop¬ 
ositions  ;  and  therefore  truth  should  be  taught  suggestively,  not 
dogmatically.”  If  what  I  have  said- is  true  this  principle  is  not 
correct.  It  may  as  properly  be  said :  “  Physical  realities  are 
known  in  sense-perception  and  not  intellectually  in  propositions  ; 
therefore  the  facts  respecting  them  should  be  taught  suggestively 
and  not  scientifically.”  It  is  true  that  spiritual  reality  is  known 
in  spiritual  experience  ;  but  it  must  also  be  known  intellectually ; 
just  as  physical  realities  are  known  by  sense-perception,  and  also 
are  known  intellectually.  And  in  each  case  it  is  incumbent  on 
rational  beings  to  attain  the  utmost  possible  precision  and  com¬ 
pleteness  of  knowledge.  So  Bishop  Butler  says :  “  Reason  is  the 
only  faculty  we  have  wherewith  to  judge  of  any  thing,  even  Rev¬ 
elation  itself.”1  And  Mr.  Wace  says:  “  We  advance  in  faith 
only  so  far  as  reason  and  conscience  are  allowed  to  accompany  us, 
but  no  further.  Neither  the  prophets  of  the  Old  Testament,  nor 
our  Lord,  nor  his  apostles  ask  us  for  one  moment  to  silence  our 

1  Analogy,  part  ii.  chap.  iii. 


THE  EXPERIENTIAL,  HISTORICAL  AND  RATIONAL.  137 


reason  or  our  conscience.  .  .  .  Faith,  like  all  other  instincts  of 
our  nature,  requires  to  be  checked  by  the  exercise  of  reason.”  1 

And  it  is  human  reason,  seeking  and  following  the  guidance  of 
God’s  Spirit,  by  which  this  synthesis  must  be  made.  Ity  virtue 
of  his  rationality  man  is  a  personal  being  and  knows  himself  part 
and  participant  of  the  rational  and  spiritual  system.  The  realm 
of  spiritual  and  supernatural  reality  is  not  something  foreign  to 
a  man  ;  something  which  happens  sometimes  to  glance  and  strike 
on  him  and  so  arrests  his  curious  attention.  His  knowledge  of 
it  is  not  accidental  and  contingent  as  of  a  foreign  realm,  so  that 
it  is  not  necessary  for  him  to  know  it  in  order  to  realize  his  high¬ 
est  manhood,  any  more  than  it  is  to  visit  Spitsbergen  or  Nova 
Zembla.  On  the  contrary  his  knowledge  of  it  is  the  spontaneous 
issue  of  his  consciousness  of  himself,  and  is  verified,  corrected  and 
enlarged  by  his  experience  in  doing  the  legitimate  work  of  his 
life  and  realizing  the  true  development  and  perfection  of  his  being. 

7.  The  historical  course  of  man’s  religious  experience  and  the¬ 
ological  thought  has  been  a  gradual  working  out  of  this  synthesis. 

History  discloses  three  stages  in  the  progress  of  it.  The  first 
is  the  stage  of  undefined  religious  experience  and  spontaneous  be¬ 
lief.  The  second  is  the  stage  of  reflective  thought,  in  which  man 
tests,  and  tries  to  verify,  his  religious  belief.  This  sometimes 
issues  in  doubt  and  skepticism.  And  through  the  tendency  to  the 
isolation  of  the  intellectual  element,  already  considered,  it  may 
lead  to  the  entire  suppression  of  belief  in  a  God.  This  issue, 
however,  is  abnormal  and,  as  history  shows,  exceptional.  It  is  a 
regress  and  not  a  progress.  The  legitimate  and  reasonable  issue, 
which  history  shows  to  have  been  in  fact  the  common  one,  is  the 
state  of  confirmed  belief  in  God  and  purified  and  amplified  knowl¬ 
edge  of  him.  This  is  the  third  stage  in  the  progress  of  human 
thought,  in  which  man  has  tested  and  verified  his  religious  expe¬ 
rience  and  his  spontaneous  religious  belief  by  reflective  thought, 
and  has  found  the  synthesis  of  the  experiential,  the  historical 
and  the  rational.  Thus  he  has  found  religion  to  be  a  reasonable 
service  and  his  spontaneous  religious  beliefs  are  corrected,  con¬ 
firmed  and  enlarged  into  well  considered  knowledge.  In  the 
childhood  of  the  race,  man  projects  outward  from  himself  the 
spiritual  realities  which  he  finds  within,  and  peoples  nature  with 
spiritual  beings  like  himself.  But  these  are  no  mere  fictions  of 
the  fancy.  By  a  necessity  of  his  rational  constitution  he  must 
know  all  phenomena  as  phenomena  of  a  being,  qualities  as  quali- 

1  Wace,  Bamp.  Lect.  1879,  pp.  207,  251. 


138 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


ties  of  a  substance,  actions  as  actions  of  an  agent,  and  changes  as 
effects  of  a  cause.  In  his  religious  experience  he  finds  himself 
the  subject  of  impressions  which  he  cannot  account  for  as  caused 
by  himself  or  by  natural  objects  or  by  other  men.  He  must  re¬ 
fer  them  to  some  agent,  and  he  refers  them  to  an  agent  which 
is  neither  a  natural  object  nor  a  man,  and  yet  is  endowed  with 
invisible  powers  of  thought,  will  and  feeling  like  his  own ;  in 
other  words,  to  a  divinity.  In  the  second  stage  man  has  ad¬ 
vanced  in  civilization  and  culture  ;  yet  he  is  still  in  a  state  of 
partial  development,  and  speculation  is  still  one-sided  and  imma¬ 
ture.  Then  he  may  persuade  himself  that  the  realm  of  the  spir¬ 
itual  and  the  supernatural  is  only  an  unreal  figment  of  his  own 
brain,  and  that  objects  of  sense  are  the  only  realities.  He  thus 
.  puts  nature  in  contradiction  to  reason,  with  a  logical  issue,  which 
he  does  not  at  once  perceive,  that  a  scientific  knowledge  of  nature 
is  itself  made  impossible.  In  the  third  stage,  he  brings  the  primi¬ 
tive  experience  and  beliefs  of  the  first  stage  into  comparison  with 
the  historical  revelations  of  God  and  under  the  test  and  verifica¬ 
tion  of  reflective  thought.  Thus  he  attains  the  synthesis  of  the 
experiential,  the  historical  and  the  intellectual,  and  returns  to 
the  religious  life  with  a  confirmed  belief  in  God,  for  which  he  can 
now  give  a  reason  to  every  one  who  asks  him.  And  the  individ¬ 
ual  in  his  own  private  history  passes  through  these  same  three 
stages  through  which  mankind  passes  in  its  history.  He  passes 
from  the  simple  experience  and  the  unquestioning  and  spontane¬ 
ous  belief  of  childhood  to  the  thoughtful  scrutiny  of  the  mature 
man,  often  at  the  present  day  encountering  doubts  and  difficulties 
and  sometimes  making  shipwreck  of  his  faith  ;  but  oftener  pass¬ 
ing  through  the  investigation  to  an  intelligent  and  confirmed  be¬ 
lief.  In  this  third  stage  reason  becomes  distinctly  conscious  of 
its  supremacy  and  asserts  it.  Then  the  man  recognizes  himself 
as  participant  in  the  realms  both  of  the  sensible  and  the  spiritual, 
both  of  nature  and  the  supernatural  ;  he  finds  the  contradiction 
between  nature  and  spirit  dissolved ;  he  sees  nature  in  the  bosom 
of  spirit,  spirit  manifesting  itself  in  nature,  and  God  in  and  over 
all ;  he  sees  the  physical  system  in  harmony  with  the  spiritual, 
both  expressing  the  thought  and  realizing  the  ends  of  the  abso¬ 
lute  and  supreme  reason ;  and  he  sees  himself  an  agent  and  par¬ 
ticipant  in  both  under  the  government  of  God.  Thus  he  returns 
to  the  religious  life  now  justified  to  the  reason  in  the  complete 
synthesis  of  the  experiential,  the  historical  and  the  rational.1 

1  “Leben  gab  ihr  die  Fabel,  die  Sclmle  hat  sie  entseelet, 

Schaffendes  Leben  auf’s  Neu’  giebt  die  Vernunft  ihr  zuriick.” 


THE  EXPERIENTIAL,  HISTORICAL  AND  RATIONAL.  139 


And  this  historical  course  of  man’s  religious  belief  and  thought 
is  entirely  analogous  to  that  of  physical  science.  The  fancies 
and  fables  of  early  cosmogonies  belong  to  the  science  of  their 
time  quite  as  much  as  to  the  religion.  That  all  things  came 
from  water  or  from  fire,  that  the  flat  earth  is  surrounded  by  a 
river  of  fire,  that  the  sun  toils  through  the  foundations  of  the 
earth  every  night,  that  there  cannot  be  antipodes,  these  are 
fancies  and  fables  of  primitive  science  quite  as  much  as  of 
primitive  religion.  And  from  these  beginnings  science  has 
floundered  on  through  as  many  errors  and  as  many  fantastic 
conceptions  as  have  appeared  in  the  history  of  religion.  Let  any 
one  read,  for  example,  the  medical  prescriptions  used  in  England 
two  hundred  years  ago. 

8.  The  necessity  of  this  synthesis  of  the  experiential  and  his¬ 
torical  with  the  intellectual  or  rational  and  its  influence  in  the 
history  of  religion  is  the  key  to  the  current  movement  of  thought 
among  Christian  theists. 

The  lap  se  of  Protestantism  into  dogmatism  and  rationalism 
was  a  perversion  of  Protestantism,  not  its  legitimate  develop¬ 
ment.  It  has  often  been  said  that  Protestantism  is  essentially 
rationalistic  ;  that  rationalism  is  its  legitimate  issue  ;  that  there 
are  but  two  roads  now  open  to  religious  thought,  of  which  one 
leads  to  Rome,  the  other  to  complete  rationalism.  One  of  the 
latest  utterances  of  this  kind  is  by  Mr.  Edwin  D.  Meade,  in  his 
volume  on  Martin  Luther  :  “  Luther  stands  for  rationalism.  He 
stands  also  for  Intellectualism  in  religion.  .  .  .  Coming  into  the 
science  of  our  time  with  the  same  spirit  with  which  he  came 
into  the  science  of  four  centuries  ago,  Martin  Luther  would  have 
been,  not  Joseph  Cook,  nor  Moody  and  Sankey,  but  Theodore 
Parker.”  1 

Protestantism  powerfully  asserted  the  rational  element  in  reli¬ 
gion  and  stimulated  theological  thought  to  intense  action.  But 
the  emphasis  of  the  assertion  was  merely  incidental  to  the  reac¬ 
tion  against  the  suppression  of  the  rights  of  the  intellect  under 

1  It  is  often  said  also  that  the  Protestant  Reformation  carried  in  its  bosom 
the  political  revolution.  Certainly  it  waked  men  up  to  thought  ;  and  in  its 
great  doctrine  of  justification  by  faith  it  set  forth  the  dignity  and  worth  of  a 
man  in  the  raw  material  of  his  manhood,  admitted  without  human  mediation 
into  the  presence  of  God  and  accepted  on  condition  of  his  own  personal  trust 
in  the  God  of  grace  ;  and  thus  it  set  forth  the  sacredness  of  his  rights.  But  in 
its  essence  it  was  fitted  to  effect  a  peaceful  progress  in  securing  human  rights. 
Truth  and  love  are  not  responsible  for  the  convulsions  of  society  occasioned 
by  the  resistance  of  oppressors  to  their  just  and  benignant  influence. 


^40 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


the  authority  of  the  hierarchy.  Protestantism  was  equally  a 
revival  of  spiritual  life,  and  an  assertion  of  the  personal  religious 
experience  and  of  the  presence  and  influence  of  the  Holy  Spirit, 
in  distinction  from  the  outwardness  and  formality  of  ecclesias- 
ticism.  The  experiential,  the  historical  and  the  intellectual  or 
rational  were  all  powerful  in  the  movement.  Luther  himself  was 
its  representative  in  the  combination  in  his  character  of  spiritual 
experience,  reverence  for  the  historical  revelation  in  the  Scrip¬ 
tures,  and  intellectual  freedom  and  daring,  in  connection  with 
the  distinctively  human  characteristics  of  a  true  manhood  in 
contrast  with  the  ghostliness  and  ghastliness  of  mediaeval  sanc¬ 
tity.  That  Protestantism  fell  into  dogmatism  and  rationalism 
was  not  due  to  the  intellectualism  of  the  movement,  but  to  the 
imperfection  and  limitation  of  man,  always  swinging  to  one  side. 
On  the  other  hand,  Protestantism,  in  an  equally  one-sided  way, 
has  sometimes  issued  in  pietism,  mysticism  and  even  fanaticism, 
showing  that  it  was  originally  a  revival  of  experiential  religion 
as  well  as  the  assertion  of  freedom  of  thought. 

Christian  thinking  is  now  moving  away  from  the  abstract 
to  the  concrete  and  realistic,  from  dogmatism  and  rationalism 
to  historical  and  spiritual  conceptions  of  God  and  redemption, 
through  thought  to  life.  This  movement  did  not  begin  in  our 
day,  but  can  be  traced  through  several  generations.  The  decline 
of  spiritual  faith  and  life  in  Great  Britain  and  America,  deplored 
in  the  writings  of  Bishop  Butler  and  President  Edwards,  was  a 
result  of  the  arid  dogmatism  to  which  I  have  referred.1  Another 
result  of  it  was  the  English  Deism.  To  the  deist,  Robert  Boyle’s 
conception  of  the  universe  as  a  clock  was  all-sufficient ;  God  was 
recognized  as  existing,  but  was  conceived  as  a  mechanician  who 
had  made  the  clock  and  set  it  going,  but  remained  outside  of  it, 
having  little  to  do  with  it  except  to  watch  its  movement.  Even 
those  who  attempted  to  defend  Christianity  relied  almost  exclu¬ 
sively  on  the  external  evidence  of  miracles ;  if  they  appealed  to 
the  Internal  Evidences,  the  one  argument  was  that  of  Soame 
Jenyns,2  that  Christ  taught  a  system  of  ethics  original  with  him 
and  superior  to  any  ever  taught  before  —  an  argument  blown 
away  by  the  present  conviction  of  scholars  that  the  principles 
of  morality  recognized  by  all  nations  are  essentially  the  same. 
After  the  beginning  of  this  century  Dugald  Stewart  and  others 
were  discussing  whether  God’s  action  in  the  universe  would  not 

1  Philosophical  Basis  of  Theism,  p.  341. 

2  View  of  the  Internal  Evidences  of  the  Christian  Religion. 


THE  EXPERIENTIAL,  HISTORICAL  AND  RATIONAL.  141 


prove  the  imperfection  of  his  workmanship,  just  as  it  would 
prove  the  imperfection  of  a  clock,  if  its  maker  were  obliged  to 
stand  by  and  keep  it  going  with  his  fingers.1 

The  reaction  from  this  meagreness  of  spiritual  thought  and 
life  appeared  in  America  in  the  revivals  of  religion  in  the  life¬ 
time  of  President  Edwards,  and  in  Great  Britain  in  the  Wes¬ 
leyan  movement,  and  in  the  evangelical  movement  in  the  estab¬ 
lished  church.  It  is  now  powerful  in  both  countries  in  every 
sphere  of  religious  thought  and  activity,  stirring  many  minds 
with  discontent,  who  have  never  defined  to  themselves  what  is 
the  ground  of  their  restlessness  nor  what  is  necessary  in  order  to 
remove  it.  In  Germany,  before  rationalism  had  fully  developed 
itself,  there  was  a  reaction  against  dead  dogmatism  in  Francke, 
Spener  and  the  so-called  Pietism.  This,  however,  did  not  avail 
to  stop  the  drift  of  thought  into  rationalism.  After  rationalism 
had  gained  its  sway  over  German  theology,  the  first  reaction 
effective  to  check  it  was  with  Schleiermacher.  He  received  from 
his  early  training  among  the  Moravians  a  spiritual  influence 
which  followed  him  throughout  his  life.  However  defective  we 
find  his  system  of  Christian  belief  to  be,  in  him  theology  at  least 
oriented  itself  ;  it  found  its  East ;  it  turned  its  face  towards  the 
sunrising,  and  ever  since  has  been  advancing  with  the  light  of 
the  Sun  of  Righteousness  on  its  brow. 

Perhaps  the  latest  distinctly  marked  epoch  in  this  movement 
was  the  publication  of  Strauss’s  Life  of  Jesus.  In  this,  ration¬ 
alism  seemed  to  reach  its  highest  achievement.  It  was  an  ap¬ 
plication  of  the  Hegelian  philosophy  to  the  life  of  Jesus;  it 
claimed  to  demonstrate  that  after  we  have  learned  the  truth  or 
thought  expressed  in  the  story  of  his  life,  the  story  itself  is  of  no 
value  and  its  historical  truth  or  falsehood  a  matter  of  indiffer¬ 
ence  ;  it  applied  to  the  Gospels  a  criticism  keen,  learned  and  de¬ 
structive,  and  commonly  acknowledged  at  the  time  to  be  the 
most  formidable  to  which  they  had  ever  been  subjected.  It 
caused  a  sort  of  consternation  in  the  Christian  world.  But  soon 
after,  Neander  published  his  Life  of  Jesus  Christ  as  a  reply  to 
Strauss.  And  since  then  has  followed  that  series  of  Lives  of 
Christ  which  have  been  appearing  every  year  until  now,  and 
which  have  been  widely  circulated  and  eagerly  read.  This  is 
a  striking  evidence  of  the  power  which  Christ  still  has  over 
the  minds  and  hearts  of  men.  The  question  whether  Homer 
ever  existed  has  been  in  dispute,  but  it  would  be  impossible  to 
1  D.  Stewart’s  Active  and  Moral  Powers,  bk.  iii.  chap.  i. 


142 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


waken  any  popular  interest  in  its  discussion.  Except  Jesus, 
there  is  no  personage  of  antiquity  who  has  such  a  hold  on  the 
interests  of  men  that  so  many  biographies  and  investigations  of 
his  life  and  work,  popular  and  scholarly,  could  be  written  within 
a  single  generation  and  be  eagerly  read  and  everywhere  dis¬ 
cussed.  And  this  we  owe  to  Strauss  ;  for  before  the  publication 
of  his  work,  Lives  of  Christ  were  scarcely  known.  We  are  also 
indebted  to  Strauss  for  more  than  this.  He  set  out  to  show  that 
the  historical  narrative  of  the  life  of  Jesus  is  of  no  account; 
that  the  whole  significance  of  his  life  is  in  the  truth  which  it 
expresses.  Instead  of  accomplishing  this  he  accomplished  just 
the  contrary.  He  concentrated  the  thought  of  all  Christendom 
on  the  study  of  the  story  of  Christ’s  life,  on  the  study  of  Jesus 
as  an  historical  personage,  and  of  his  history,  teaching  and  influ¬ 
ence  among  men.  And  the  result  is  that  men  are  seeing,  as 
they  never  saw  before,  that  the  great  evidence  of  Christianity 
is  in  Christ  himself ;  that  his  human  life  and  influence  can  be 
accounted  for  only  by  admitting  that  he  is  divine.  They  have 
also  come  to  understand  more  fully  than  ever  before  the  profound 
and  far-reaching  significance  of  the  Incarnation,  and  the  pecu¬ 
liarity,  richness  and  practical  power  of  the  revelation  of  God 
made  in  the  humiliation  of  the  Logos  and  in  the  earthly  life  of 
the  Christ. 

In  our  own  country,  when  Strauss  published  his  Life  of  Jesus, 
the  churches  were  just  emerging  from  the  Unitarian  controversy. 
They  brought  out  of  it  with  them  the  theological  Christ,  but 
scarcely  the  historical  Jesus.  They  believed  that  Christ  was 
God ;  they  could  marshal  all  the  proof-texts  which  imply  his 
divinity.  But  he  was  to  them  scarcely  anything  but  God.  In 
proving  him  to  be  divine  they  had  obscured  his  humanity,  in 
and  through  which  he  revealed  God  and  wrought  the  divine 
work  of  redeeming  man  from  sin.  Strauss’s  Life  of  Jesus  in  its 
results  led  the  Christian  people  of  America  back  to  the  human 
life  of  Jesus  and  thus  in  him,  as  the  exponent  to  us  under  human 
limitations  and  conditions  of  what  God  is,  they  found  God  not 
the  less  but  the  more.  Professor  Moses  Stuart,  in  lecturing  to 
his  classes  on  messianic  prophecy,  used  to  select  a  few  passages 
from  the  Old  Testament  as  messianic  and  give  as  the  reason, 
that  they  were  quoted  and  applied  to  Christ  in  the  New  Tes¬ 
tament  ;  with  the  result  that  many  of  the  students  thought 
that  the  recognition  of  messianic  prophecy  was  arbitrary  and 
forced,  and  were  ready  to  doubt  that  the  Old  Testament  fairly 


THE  EXPERIENTIAL,  HISTORICAL  AND  RATIONAL.  143 


interpreted  contained  any  messianic  prophecy.  But  the  closer 
study  of  the  actual  history  of  what  God  has  done  for  man  as 
recorded  in  the  Bible  has  led  the  scholarship  of  this  day  to 
recognize  the  whole  history  of  Israel  as  having  a  messianic  out¬ 
look  and  the  messianic  interpretation  of  prophecy  as  entirely  un¬ 
forced  and  natural,  according  to  the  strictest  laws  of  interpre¬ 
tation.  Theology,  occupied  with  doctrines  and  formulas,  had 
lost  sight  of  the  historical  kingdom  of  Christ.  But  the  study  of 
his  life  and  teaching  on  earth  brought  it  again  to  notice.  At 
that  time  the  New  England  theology  was  about  consummating 
its  work.  It  had  rendered  the  great  service  of  defining  more 
exactly  the  nature  and  limits  of  human  responsibility  and  thus 
opening  the  way  for  preaching  the  duty  and  obligation  of  repent¬ 
ance.  But  necessarily  in  the  very  discussion  of  these  questions, 
it  had  occupied  the  mind  with  nice  distinctions  and  definitions  of 
philosophy.  Thus  the  mind  was  turned  off  from  the  richness  of 
thought  and  the  power  of  motive  in  the  life  of  Christ.  The  as¬ 
sault  of  Strauss  on  the  gospel  histories  forced  Christian  thinking 
back  upon  these  great  themes. 

Thus  by  turning  the  attention  of  all  Christendom  to  the  hu¬ 
man  life  of  Jesus,  Strauss’s  assault  on  Christianity  tended  to  cor¬ 
rect  the  one-sidedness  and  deficiencies  which  had  temporarily 
enfeebled  theology,  and  to  turn  Christian  thinking  back  to  the 
historical  Christ  and  to  the  treasures  of  wisdom  and  knowledge 
hid  in  him.  It  summoned  Christian  theologians  to  recognize 
anew  the  fact  that  the  historical  Christ  is  the  true  centre  of  all 
theological  thinking  and  systemizing,  and  Christian  preachers  to 
renewed  earnestness  in  saying  with  Paul  :  “  I  determined  not  to 
know  anything  among  you,  save  Jesus  Christ,  and  him  crucified.” 
Goethe  once  said  that  the  devil  was  God’s  best  gift  to  man. 
Without  endorsing  this  audacious  assertion  in  its  literal  meaning, 
we  must  be  grateful  to  God,  always 

“  From  seeming  evil  still  educing  good 
And  better  thence  again,  and  better  still, 

In  infinite  progression,” 

for  the  evidence  given,  on  occasion  of  this  work  of  error,  that 
God  still  reveals  himself  to  men  and  is  still  known  by  faithful 
souls  who  seek  him,  and  for  the  good  which  has  come  from  the 
reaction  of  Christian  faith  and  scholarship  against  this  assault. 

Much  is  said  nowadays  of  a  “  New  movement  in  theology.” 
Such  a  movement  is  healthy,  if  it  is  toward  the  synthesis  of  the 


144 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


experiential,  the  historical  and  the  rational  in  the  knowledge  of 
God ;  if  it  is  from  the  abstract  to  the  concrete,  from  the  spec¬ 
ulative  to  the  historical,  from  the  dead  to  the  living,  from  stick¬ 
ing  in  the  letter  to  the  strong  grasp  of  reality ;  if  it  is  from  dog¬ 
matism  and  rationalism  to  the  “  God  in  Christ  reconciling  the 
world  unto  himself,”  recognized  as  the  centre  of  all  theology, 
known  in  experience  so  that  men  “acquaint  themselves  with  him 
and  are  at  peace,”  preached  by  those  who  know  him  and  who  tes¬ 
tify  “what  God  has  done  for  their  souls ;  ”  if  it  is  from  an  emo¬ 
tional,  one-sided,  self-coddling  “  other-worldliness,”  to  a  recogni¬ 
tion  of  Christ’s  kingdom  advancing  on  earth,  and  the  hearty  con¬ 
secration  of  ourselves,  as  “  laborers  together  with  God,”  to  the 
work  of  transforming  human  society  into  it. 

It  is  necessary  both  to  the  clearest  and  fullest  understanding 
of  truth  and  to  its  greatest  practical  power,  that  it  be  either 
embodied  or  ensouled,  that  it  be  presented  to  our  notice  in  some 
thing,  person  or  action.  As  George  Eliot  says  :  “  Ideas  are  often 
poor  ghosts ;  our  sun-filled  eyes  cannot  discern  them ;  they  pass 
athwart  us  in  their  vapor  and  cannot  make  themselves  felt. 
But  sometimes  they  are  made  flesh  ;  they  breathe  upon  us  with 
warm  breath,  they  touch  us  with  soft  responsive  hands,  they 
look  at  us  with  sad  sincere  eyes,  and  speak  to  us  in  appealing 
tones ;  they  are  clothed  in  a  living,  human  soul,  with  all  its  con¬ 
flicts,  its  faith,  its  love.  Then  their  presence  is  a  power,  then 
they  shake  us  like  a  passion,  and  we  are  drawn  after  them  with 
gentle  compulsion,  as  flame  is  drawn  to  flame.  ...  It  is  one  of 
the  secrets  in  the  change  of  mental  poise  which  has  fitly  been 
named  conversion,  that  to  many  among  us  neither  heaven  nor 
earth  has  any  revelation  till  some  personality  touches  theirs  with 
a  peculiar  influence,  subduing  them  to  receptiveness.”  1  It  is  in 
adaptation  to  this  trait  of  the  human  constitution  that  God  has 
embodied  his  revelation  of  himself  in  nature  and  ensouled  it  in 
the  lives  of  men  ;  that  he  has  revealed  himself  in  the  great 
courses  of  human  history ;  and  especially  that  he  has  come  to  us 
in  the  “  one  Mediator  between  God  and  men,  himself  man,  Christ 
Jesus.” 

So  far  then  as  the  movement  of  theological  thought  is  in  this 
direction,  it  is  in  the  highest  degree  healthful,  helpful  and  hope¬ 
ful.  But  this  is  not  a  new  movement.  It  is  only  a  more  ad¬ 
vanced  stage  in  the  reaction  from  arid  dogmatism  and  rational¬ 
ism  which  in  various  forms  has  long  been  going  on.  We  trace 

1  Janet’s  Repentance,  chap.  xix. 


THE  EXPERIENTIAL,  HISTORICAL  AND  RATIONAL.  145 


in  it  the  struggle  to  attain  the  synthesis  of  experience,  history 
and  rational  intelligence,  in  which  alone  the  true  and  full-orbed 
theology  is  possible. 

Some  have  fled  to  Schleiermacher  to  escape  from  abstract 
dogmas,  philosophical  speculations  and  destructive  criticism,  to 
the  experience  of  the  presence  and  love  of  the  living  God.  But 
it  is  evident  that  his  doctrine  of  the  religious  consciousness,  what¬ 
ever  its  truth  and  importance,  is  one-sided  and  defective,  and 
inadequate  both  for  Christian  truth  and  life.  The  movement  in 
this  direction  issues  in  pietism  or  mysticism,  various  types  of 
which  are  not  uncommon  among  our  religious  people. 

Others  have  fled  from  Schleiermacher  to  Hegel,  because  with 
the  former  they  seemed  to  find  only  a  belief  resting  unstable  on 
the  feelings  and  existing  merely  in  the  subjective  consciousness 
of  the  believer,  while  in  the  philosophy  of  the  latter  they  have 
hoped  to  find  truth  fixed  and  eternal,  the  Being  that  is  absolute 
and  without  change,  and  the  reality  and  true  significance  of  the 
universe  which  all  its  changing  phenomena  reveal.  Augustine 
says:  “The  Christian  claims  as  his  Master's  own  possession  every 
fragment  of  truth,  wherever  it  may  be  found.”  Christianity  is 
comprehensive  of  all  spiritual  truth.  As  the  one  absolute  reli¬ 
gion,  it  must  be  able  to  take  up  all  spiritual  truth  and  to  accord 
with  all  spiritual  reality.  The  profound  philosophy  of  Hegel 
suggests  truths,  aspects  of  reality  and  lines  of  thought  by  which 
our  accepted  theology  may  be  broadened,  deepened  and  enriched, 
and  the  reasonableness  of  doctrines  received  on  the  authority  of 
revelation  be  found.  I  say  suggests,  for  Hegel  himself,  beclouded 
in  his  dialectics  and  his  a  'priori  methods,  can  scarcely  be  said 
to  have  grasped  and  clearly  enunciated  the  theistic  and  Christian 
truths  which  his  philosophy  approaches  and  points  to,  but  never 
declares.  It  is  legitimate  for  Christian  theists  to  seek  whatever 
truth  is  suggested  by  it,  and  to  use  the  same  to  support  and 
enrich  the  Christian  faith.  It  must  be  said,  however,  of  all  the 
recent  writers  who  have  looked  to  Hegelianism  for  help,  that, 
whatever  of  value  they  bring  to  Christian  theology,  they  bring 
it  encompassed  with  the  obscurity  and  the  tenuous  speculation 
characteristic  of  the  philosophy,  and  with  forms  of  thought  and 
expression  which  easily  lead  to  idealistic  Pantheism  and  to  the 
mistaking  of  logical  notions  and  processes  for  concrete  beings  and 
their  activities  and  relations. 

In  this  country  the  rationalistic  movement,  where  it  has  not 

issued  in  the  rejection  even  of  theism,  has  found  visible  embodi- 

10 


146 


THE  SELF-RE YELATION  OF  GOD. 


ment  in  unitarianism.  But  even  among  those  called  evangelical, 
in  the  ferment  of  theological  thought  rationalistic  tendencies 
come  to  light  and  rationalistic  opinions  are  avowed,  perhaps  some¬ 
times  in  unconsciousness  of  their  distinctive  character.  In  a  re¬ 
cently  published  book  of  an  eminent  and  able  evangelical  author 
we  are  told  :  “  The  exact  facts  of  the  gospels  may  escape  us  ;  we 
may  easily  cast  on  them  endless  doubts  and  raise  with  them  end¬ 
less  difficulties.  They  are  shrouded  by  the  gathering  mists  of 
centuries.  Not  so  is  it  with  the  truths  of  the  gospels.  They 
have  lost  nothing  and  have  gained  much  by  intervening  years. 
.  .  .  No  matter  what  we  may  establish  about  facts  which  have 
now  passed  into  the  oblivion  of  nineteen  centuries,  we  must  still 
ask,  What  are  the  controlling  incentives  of  the  present  hour  ? 
No  matter  what  we  fail  to  prove  concerning  these  facts,  we  may 
still  hold  fast  a  spiritual  faith,  wholly  defensible  by  virtue  of  the 
living  and  potent  principles  present  with  us  from  that  place  and 
that  period  which  define  the  life  of  Christ.”  It  is  not  easy  to 
distinguish  this  from  the  idea  of  Strauss  in  writing  his  first  Life 
of  Jesus.  The  idea  that  the  essential  significance  of  Christ's 
mission  is  in  the  truths  and  precepts  which  he  taught,  while  the 
facts  of  his  personal  history  are  a  matter  of  indifference,  is  of  the 
essence  of  rationalism.  The  same  appears  in  identifying  religion 
with  “ethics  lit  up  with  emotion,”  as  Matthew  Arnold  does  and 
in  welcoming  as  a  Christian  fellow- worker,  “  the  Agnostic  who 
wishes  to  do  good,”  1  as  a  clergyman  of  the  Church  of  England 
has  recently  done  ;  for  these  offer  us  Christianity  without  Christ 
and  religion  without  God.  Speculations  like  these  show  still 
among  us  the  old  movement  in  theology  from  dogmatism  on¬ 
ward  to  rationalistic  thought.  They  are  lingering  puffs  from 
the  sand-storms  of  the  great  Sahara  of  rationalism,  which  the 
church  is  leaving  behind  in  its  progress  toward  spiritual  reality 
and  life. 

It  is  evident,  therefore,  that  whatever  the  movement  of  the¬ 
ological  thought  may  be,  the  isolation  of  experience  in  mysti¬ 
cism,  of  historical  study  in  unspiritual  and  arid  criticism,  and  of 
theological  thought  in  dogmatism  or  in  rationalism  are  all  still 
present  in  the  religion  and  the  theological  thinking  of  the  present 
time.  In  speaking  of  the  present  movement  in  theology,  men 
commonly  fail  to  discriminate  between  these,  and  group  together 
under  that  common  name  lines  of  religious  life  and  thought  which 
are  different  and  in  opposite  directions.  The  religion  and  the- 

1  The  Gospel  of  the  Secular  Life,  by  W.  H.  Fremantle,  pp.  162,  163. 


THE  EXPERIENTIAL,  HISTORICAL  AND  RATIONAL.  147 


ology  of  the  time  cannot  be  intelligently  apprehended  without 
discriminating  between  these  several  directions  of  life  and 
thought.  A  navigator  cannot  determine  his  position  by  latitude 
alone,  but  only  by  both  latitude  and  longitude.  So  to  determine 
the  position  of  theological  thought,  we  must  know  it  in  reference 
both  to  the  experiential,  the  historical  and  the  rational.  The 
direction  of  all  healthy  thinking  is  toward  the  synthesis  of  the 
three. 

This  healthy  direction  to  the  synthesis  of  theological  thought 
with  religious  experience  and  historical  revelation  insures  the 
passage  of  the  thought  through  the  words  to  the  realities  signi¬ 
fied,  through  the  abstract  to  the  concrete,  through  the  intellect¬ 
ual  to  the  practical.  Words  and  abstract  ideas  are  necessary  in 
investigation.  But  true  and  effective  thinking  must  pass  through 
the  words  and  the  abstract  general  notions  to  the  concrete  reali¬ 
ties.  And  this  is  done  just  so  far  as  we  attain  the  synthesis  of 
theological  thought  with  religious  experience  and  historical  rev¬ 
elation. 

There  is  nothing  in  these  conclusions  which  disparages  the¬ 
ological  investigation  or  discourages  attempts  to  clarify,  com¬ 
plete  and  systemize  our  knowledge  of  God  and  of  his  relations 
to  us  and  the  universe.  It  is  true  that  religion  has  suffered  from 
over-definition  in  theology,  in  the  effort  to  give  an  exact  answer 
to  every  question  which  can  arise  in  all  the  finest  and  most  com¬ 
plicated  ramifications  of  thought.  It  is  true  that  on  many  points 
which  come  into  view  in  the  study  of  God  and  his  works,  sug¬ 
gestion  reveals  more  than  definition.  It  is  true  that  the  heart  is 
often  wiser  than  the  head ;  that  a  true  faith  is  consistent  with 
defective  knowledge  and  with  many  intellectual  errors ;  that  we 
may  welcome  and  love  as  Christians  men  “  perplexed  in  faith 
but  pure  in  deed.”  But  in  all  this  there  is  no  justification  of 
loose  thinking,  of  a  mysticism  of  the  feelings  unpurified  and  un¬ 
verified  by  thought.  Man  by  his  rational  constitution  is  impelled 
to  seek  and  is  under  moral  obligation  to  seek  the  utmost  attain¬ 
able  clearness,  precision,  completeness  and  unity  of  his  knowl¬ 
edge  of  God. 

There  are  three  points  to  be  noticed  here  in  reference  to  the 
facts  that  what  God  reveals  is  himself  as  distinguished  from  doc¬ 
trines,  systems  and  religions,  and  that  the  best  thinking  of  the 
church  is  tending  to  bring  back  the  abstract  and  the  rationalistic 
to  its  legitimate  synthesis  with  the  concrete  spiritual  reality  re¬ 
vealed  in  the  Christian  consciousness  and  in  the  historical  Christ 
and  his  kingdom. 


148 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


The  first  point  is,  that  it  is  precisely  in  this  way  that  we  gain 
the  clearest,  most  trustworthy  and  complete  knowledge.  This 
is  true  of  our  knowledge  of  nature  and  of  man  not  less  than  of 
our  knowledge  of  God.  We  find  the  knowledge  of  principles, 
laws  and  systems  in  the  observation  and  investigation  of  concrete 
realities.  In  concrete  forms  the  eternal  principles  of  mathe¬ 
matics  are  revealed.  Nature  presents  us  no  astronomy.  It  is 
only  by  observing  and  studying  the  earth  and  the  stars  that  we 
find  our  astronomical  system  ;  and  the  system  when  found  is 
nothing  in  itself,  but  is  of  significance  only  because  it  is  the  in¬ 
tellectual  equivalent  of  what  the  universe  really  is.  So  in  all 
cases  natqre  simply  presents  itself  in  its  ongoing.  It  gives  us  no 
physical  science.  The  science  is  created  only  by  observing  and 
studying  nature  and  apprehending  in  thought  the  reality  as  it  is. 
So  it  is  in  the  revelation  of  God.  God  gives  us  no  theology,  just 
as  nature  gives  us  no  science.  He  simply  acts  in  and  before  us. 
By  the  observation  and  study  of  his  works  we  learn  what  he  is 
and  what  are  his  relations  to  us  and  to  the  universe.  The  result 
of  these  observations  and  reflections,  expressed  as  clearly  and 
systematically  as  we  can,  is  theology.  A  sparrow,  if  we  would 
learn  all  that  is  to  be  learned  about  it,  reveals  an  encyclopaedia 
of  knowledge.  A  brief  history  may  open  an  immense  scope  for 
thought.  The  brief  life  of  Christ  reveals  God. 

Another  point  to  be  noticed  is  this.  The  difficulty  with  our 
formulas  and  systems  is  not  so  much  that  they  are  erroneous 
as  that,  however  correct,  we  stop  in  the  words  and  the  abstract 
propositions,  instead  of  passing  through  them  to  the  reality.  No 
science  can  be  mastered  from  books  alone.  The  astronomer  must 
observe  the  heavens,  the  chemist  must  experiment  in  the  labora¬ 
tory,  the  botanist  and  zoologist  must  study  plants  and  animals. 
One  would  have  a  very  limited  and  incorrect  knowledge  of  as¬ 
tronomy  who  had  never  seen  the  sun,  the  moon  or  the  stars  ;  or  of 
botany  or  zoology,  who  had  never  seen  a  plant  or  an  animal.  So 
the  doctrine  is  that  we  must  know  God  in  experience  as  he  re¬ 
veals  himself  in  his  action.  We  must  pass  through  our  formulas 
and  systems  to  the  living  God  whom  they  declare.  His  revela¬ 
tion  of  himself  is  broad  and  bright  as  the  universe.  We  must 
find  him  in  it  every  day.  We  must  freshen  our  old  knowledge 
with  new  communications  of  his  grace.  We  must  receive  it  anew 
from  day  to  day,  as  we  receive  the  all-encompassing  light  by 
which  we  live.  In  the  Bible  God  as  he  reveals  himself  is  com¬ 
pared  to  the  sun.  Science  discloses  principles  and  laws  accord- 


THE  EXPERIENTIAL,  HISTORICAL  AND  RATIONAL.  149 


ing  to  which  the  light  always  acts,  and  which  regulate  our  see¬ 
ing  ;  yet  the  sun  is  pouring  out  its  light  without  ceasing,  and  we 
must  receive  it  ever  anew  or  we  cannot  see.  So  in  studying  God’s 
revelation  of  himself  we  find  unchanging  principles  and  laws 
according  to  which  he  acts  and  which  we  are  bound  to  obey  ; 
yet  his  revelation  goes  on  without  ceasing,  in  all  nature,  in  the 
experience  of  individuals,  and  in  the  history  of  man  ;  and  we 
must  receive  it  ever  anew  or  we  cannot  know  him.  And  as  in 
the  former  case  the  necessity  of  receiving  the  light  always  anew 
does  not  set  aside  the  science  of  optics  nor  detract  from  its  value, 
so  in  the  latter  case  the  necessity  of  receiving  God’s  revelation  of 
himself  anew  does  not  set  aside  theology  nor  detract  from  its 
value. 

It  is  to  be  noticed,  further,  that  this  knowledge  of  God  is 
necessary  to  realize  the  true  Christian  life.  Knowledge  is  of 
value  as  the  guide,  stimulus  and  strength  of  life.  The  Chris¬ 
tian  ideal  of  life  is  the  true  ideal  of  the  life  of  man.  It  is 
the  life  of  faith  in  God  and  of  love  to  God  and  man ;  of  self- 
devotion  and  self-sacrifice,  of  truthfulness  and  courage.  The 
realization  of  this  ideal  in  the  kingdom  of  God  on  earth  is 
the  end,  so  far  as  man  is  concerned,  of  all  the  revelation  of 
God.  But  for  its  realization  the  knowledge  of  God  is  necessary. 
There  must  be  not  merely  the  knowledge  of  formulas,  systems 
and  books,  but  a  knowledge  of  God,  so  that  the  man  shall  live 
as  in  his  sight,  in  constant  trust  in  him  and  confidential  inti¬ 
macy  with  him. 


■ 


PART  II 


GOD  REVEALED  IN 


THE  UNIVERSE  AS  THE  ABSOLUTE 
BEING. 


r‘  No  thinking  is  in  a  position  to  deny  an  absolute,  and  even  those,  who  have  taken 
the  field  most  zealously  against  the  conception  of  the  absolute,  have  assumed  an  abso¬ 
lute.” —  Hartmann,  Die  Religion  des  Geistes,  part  B,  p.  116. 

“There  ever  remains  with  us  a  sense  of  that  which  exists  persistently  and  indepen¬ 
dently  of  conditions.  ...  We  are  by  the  laws  of  thought  prevented  from  ridding  ourselves 
of  the  consciousness  of  absolute  existence,  this  consciousness  being  the  obverse  of  our  self- 
consciousness.  And  since  the  onl}r  possible  measure  of  relative  validity  among  our  beliefs 
is  the  degree  of  their  persistence  in  opposition  to  the  efforts  made  to  change  them,  it  fol¬ 
lows  that  this  which  persists  at  all  times,  under  all  circumstances,  and  cannot  cease  until 
consciousness  ceases,  has  the  highest  validity  of  any.  .  .  .  Asserting  the  persistence  of 
force,  is  but  another  mode  of  asserting  an  unconditioned  reality  without  beginning  or 
end.  .  .  .  The  axiomatic  truths  of  physical  science  unavoidably  postulate  absolute  Being 
as  their  common  basis.  .  .  .  Without  this,  religion  has  no  subject-matter;  and  without  this, 
science,  subjective  and  objective,  lacks  its  indispensable  datum.  We  cannot  construct 
a  theory  of  internal  phenomena  without  postulating  absolute  Being  ;  and  unless  we  postu¬ 
late  absolute  Being,  or  being  that  persists,  we  cannot  construct  a  theory  of  external 
phenomena.  .  .  .  Such  is  the  foundation  of  any  possible  system  of  positive  knowledge. 
Deeper  than  demonstration  —  deeper  even  than  definite  cognition  —  deep  as  the  very 
nature  of  mind,  is  the  postulate  at  which  we  have  arrived.  Its  authority  transcends  al\ 
other  whatever;  for  not  only  is  it  given  in  the  constitution  of  our  own  consciousness, 
but  it  is  impossible  to  imagine  a  consciousness  so  constituted  as  not  to  give  it.  .  .  .  Its 
positive  existence  is  a  necessary  datum  of  consciousness;  so  long  as  consciousness  con¬ 
tinues,  we  cannot  for  an  instant  rid  it  of  this  datum;  and  thus  the  belief  which  this 
datum  constitutes  has  a  higher  warrant  than  any  other  whatever.”  —  H.  Spencer,  First 
Principles ,  pp.  96,  255,  256,  258,  98. 

“  The  Mystery  of  the  universe  is  a  fact  —  not  a  mere  entity,  but  a  something,  a  being 
that  is  mysterious.” —Wilhelm  Meyer,  Wesen  des  Christenthums,  p.  127. 

“This  idea  of  the  unconditioned,  rising  irrepressible  in  the  background  of  our  conscious¬ 
ness,  is  the  first  ground-premise  from  which  all  thought  is  set  in  action  and  driven  on  over 
all  conditioned  and  presented  reality,  to  find  rest  only  in  the  certainty  of  an  Infinite  and 
All-conditioning.”  — I.  H.  Fichte,  Theistische  Welt-ansicht,  p.  3. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 


THE  ABSOLUTE  BEING. 

We  are  now  to  explore  the  universe,  so  far  as  open  to  our 
investigation,  to  ascertain  whether  God  reveals  himself  in  it, 
and  if  so,  what  he  is  as  revealed ;  and  whether  our  spontaneous 
belief  in  God  as  revealed  in  our  own  experience  is  verified  by 
these  revelations. 

In  the  outset  we  shall  find  that  the  absolute,  unconditioned 
and  all-conditioning  Being  is  revealed  or  manifested  in  the  uni¬ 
verse.  Having  established  this,  we  shall  proceed  to  ascertain 
what  the  absolute  Being  is,  so  far  as  he  has  thus  revealed  or 
manifested  himself.  We  shall  consider  his  revelation  of  himself 
in  the  existence  of  the  universe,  in  the  constitution  and  course 
of  nature,  and  in  the  constitution  and  history  of  man.  Then  we 
shall  inquire  whether  he  has  further  revealed  himself  in  Christ 
and  in  the  establishment  of  his  kingdom.  This,  as  a  part  of 
the  revelation  of  God  in  human  history,  might  be  considered 
under  that  general  head.  But,  while  thus  it  is  brought  into 
unity  with  the  whole  historic  revelation  of  God,  its  importance 
as  the  culmination  of  the  revelation,  in  the  sphere  of  man’s  spir¬ 
itual  life  and  development,  requires  for  it  a  place  by  itself  in 
our  investigations. 

Thus  in  the  evidence  of  the  existence  of  God  and  of  what 
he  is  we  find  a  unity  ;  not  several  disconnected  arguments,  but 
the  development  of  one  continuous  and  progressive  revelation. 
Beginning  with  God’s  revelation  of  himself  in  our  own  conscious¬ 
ness,  we  proceed  to  test  it  in  his  revelation  of  himself  in  the 
universe.  We  find  in  it  one  continuous  revelation  of  God,  first 
as  the  absolute  Being  manifesting  himself  in  all  phenomena  ; 
then  revealing  himself  as  Reason  energizing  in  the  physical  sys¬ 
tem  until  in  its  evolution  man  appears.  Then  in  the  spiritual 
system  we  find  him  revealing  himself  further  as  the  absolute 
Reason  energizing  in  the  moral  government  and  education,  and 
in  the  spiritual  development  of  man.  Lastly,  when  man  is  pre¬ 
pared  for  it,  God  in  Christ  and  the  Holy  Spirit  reveals  himself 


154 


THE  SELF-RE YELATION  OF  GOD. 


as  the  Redeemer  of  men  from  sin,  establishing  among  men  his 
kingdom  of  righteousness  and  good-will.  Through  all  these  rev¬ 
elations  we  gain  progressively  a  larger  and  clearer  knowledge  of 
what  the  absolute  Being  is. 

English  and  American  writers  on  Natural  Theology  have  not 
been  wont  to  insist  on  the  origin  of  man’s  knowledge  of  God  in 
his  revelation  of  himself  in  consciousness.  And  in  examining 
the  further  evidence  in  the  universe  of  the  existence  of  God, 
they  have  not  been  wont  to  begin  with  recognizing  the  rational 
intuition  of  the  existence  of  the  absolute  Being  as  a  necessary 
principle  of  reason  and  law  of  thought.  In  fact  they  have  not 
recognized  the  idea  of  the  absolute  otherwise  than  as  a  First 
Cause  supposed  to  be  proved  to  exist  by  the  law  of  causation, 
and  have  proceeded  at  once  to  examine  the  evidence  in  the  uni¬ 
verse  of  the  personality  of  God.  For  these  reasons  their  argu¬ 
ments  have  been  exposed  to  damaging  criticism  and  their  validity 
has  been  denied. 

In  this  investigation  we  find,  first,  that  the  absolute  Being 

exists. 

By  absolute  Being  I  mean  the  being  that  exists  not  dependent 
on  or  conditioned  by  any  reality  independent  of  or  prerequisite 
to  itself.  It  is  not  dependent  for  its  being  on  any  cause  ante¬ 
cedent  to  or  other  than  itself,  nor  conditioned  in  its  existence 
under  any  necessary  limitation  or  relation  independent  of  itself. 

The  grounds  on  which  we  believe  in  the  existence  of  the  abso¬ 
lute  Being  are  next  to  be  considered. 

That  absolute  Being  exists  is  a  necessary  and  ultimate  prin¬ 
ciple  of  reason,  involved  in  the  constitution  of  man  as  rational. 
The  belief  is  a  rational  intuition  necessarily  arising  in  its  own 
self-evidence  in  completing  the  process  of  thought  in  any  line  of 
inquiry. 

In  the  knowledge  of  being  we  know  the  existence  of  absolute 
Being.  If  something  exists  now,  something  must  have  existed 
eternally.  An  absolute,  uncaused  beginning  is  absurd  and  un¬ 
thinkable. 

In  knowing  anything  which  is  caused,  we  necessarily  know 
that  uncaused  being  must  exist.  If  we  admit  the  reality  of  force 
or  energy  in  the  course  of  nature  and  believe  that  every  begin¬ 
ning  or  change  of  existence  has  a  cause,  then  we  necessarily 
know  that  there  is  a  power  which  is  not  itself  an  effect,  which 
persists  in  all  changes,  and  is  the  unconditioned  ground  of  the 
entire  series.  Otherwise  power  or  force  disappears,  the  course  of 


THE  ABSOLUTE  BEING. 


155 


nature  ravels  out,  and  all  which  is  left  is  empty  antecedence  and 
consequence  with  nothing  which  is  antecedent  and  nothing  which 
is  consequent.  The  same  is  implied  in  the  scientific  fact  of  the 
persistence  of  force.  As  Mr.  Spencer  says  :  14  The  persistence  of 
the  universe  is  the  persistence  of  that  Unknown  Cause,  Power  or 
Force  which  is  manifested  to  us  through  all  phenomena.” 

So  in  the  knowledge  of  rationality,  we  necessarily  postulate 
absolute  Reason.  The  possibility  of  concluding  reasoning  in  an 
inference  which  gives  knowledge,  rests  on  universal  truths  regu¬ 
lative  of  all  thinking.  The  validity  of  these  universal  truths 
involves  the  existence  of  Reason  unconditioned,  universal  and 
supreme,  the  same  everywhere  and  always.  If  absolute  Reason 
does  not  exist,  no  reason  and  no  rational  knowledge  exist. 

Also,  in  our  endeavors  to  know  the  manifold  in  the  unity  of  an 
all-comprehending  system,  we  find  it  only  as  the  universe  is  the 
manifestation  of  the  absolute  and  unconditioned  One. 

Thus  in  every  line  of  thought  the  knowledge  rises  self-evident 
that  there  must  be  an  absolute  and  unconditioned  Being.  We 
properly  recognize  it  as  a  primitive  and  universal  truth,  known 
in  rational  intuition.  The  idea  of  absolute  Being  and  the  belief 
of  its  existence  are  in  the  background  of  human  consciousness, 
and  at  the  foundation  of  all  knowledge  through  human  thought. 
The  existence  of  absolute  Being  underlies  the  possibility  of  all 
finite  being,  power,  reasoning  and  rational  knowledge. 

In  this  rational  intuition  the  absolute  Being  is  revealed  to  us  ; 
and  when  we  have  come  to  know  God  we  properly  say  that,  in 
this  rational  intuition  and  through  our  rational  constitution,  God 
reveals  himself  in  our  consciousness  as  the  absolute  Being.  We 
find  ourselves  so  constituted  that  the  normal  unfolding  of  our 
own  reason  reveals  to  us  the  absolute  Being. 

We  have  here  the  knowledge  that  the  absolute  Being  exists. 
Whether  we  can  know  more  about  it  we  are  not  now  inquiring. 
In  the  Egyptian  sanctuary  of  Isis  at  Sais  is  the  inscription :  44 1 
am  that  which  is,  that  which  was,  and  that  which  will  be.  No 
mortal  ever  lifted  my  veil.”  If  the  worshiper  could  not  lift  the 
veil,  he  at  least  read  the  proclamation  that  behind  it  was  the 
eternal  Being.  Such  a  sanctuary  is  the  universe.  In  its  laws 
and  processes  the  absolute  Being  is  veiled  ;  but  on  this  veil  rea¬ 
son,  exploring  it  in  its  own  clear  light,  reads  the  inscription  pro¬ 
claiming  the  reality  and  presence  of  the  absolute  Being. 

An  objection  is  urged  here,  that  the  existence  of  the  absolute 
Being  is  not  a  necessary  postulate  of  the  reason,  because  the  uni- 


156 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


verse  can  be  conceived  as  an  eternal  series  of  causal  actions  and 
effects.  To  this  the  common  answer  is  that  the  objection  is  self¬ 
contradictory  and  absurd  ;  a  series  which  at  every  point  is  a  be¬ 
ginning  cannot  be  eternal ;  a  series  which  at  every  point  is  de¬ 
pendent  cannot  be  independent.  But  the  answer  goes  deeper 
than  this.  The  essential  idea  of  the  series  is  that  through  all  the 
changes  something  persists  unchanged.  If  not,  then  at  each 
change  there  is  an  absolute  end  and  an  absolute  beginning;  all 
that  had  been  ends,  and  that  which  had  not  been  begins.  If  there 
is  a  series  of  causal  actions  and  effects,  there  is  something  that 
through  all  the  changes  persists  unchanged.  The  something  that 
persists  through  all  the  beginnings  and  changes  of  the  series  is 
that  which  is  independent  of  the  series  and  never  began  to  be. 
This  is  implied  in  the  scientific  law  of  the  persistence  of  force, 
which  assumes  that  through  all  changes  the  sum  of  force  poten¬ 
tial  and  energetic  in  the  universe  is  always  the  same. 

Another  objection  is  that  the  existence  of  the  absolute  Being 
is  not  known  by  rational  intuition  as  a  primary  principle  or  law 
of  thought,  but  is  inferred  from  the  principle  of  causation.  But 
this  principle  pertains  only  to  phenomena  in  the  universe,  which 
have  a  beginning ;  it  cannot  reach  the  absolute  ground  of  all 
things.  It  arises  in  consciousness  only  in  view  of  some  observed 
change  or  beginning ;  and  each  change  requires  only  a  finite 
cause.  And  if  that  cause  in  its  turn  is  observed  to  have  a  be¬ 
ginning,  the  principle  of  causation  requires  no  more  than  a  finite 
cause  for  this.  Thus  the  belief  that  every  beginning  has  a  cause 
carries  in  it  no  imperative  demand  for  an  uncaused  cause,  but  is 
fully  satisfied  in  the  continuous  regression  through  finite  effects 
and  causes,  and  never  carries  us  beyond  it.  On  the  contrary 
the  belief  that  absolute  Being  exists  is  an  original  principle  of 
reason  which  asserts  itself  in  the  consciousness  on  occasion  of 
the  observed  succession  of  effects,  but  is  in  no  sense  an  inference 
from  it. 

Many  theists  have  held  that  the  existence  of  God  may  be 
proved  from  the  existence  of  the  universe  by  the  law  of  causa¬ 
tion.  They  thus  expose  themselves  to  objections  :  that  the  law 
of  causation  demands  a  cause  of  God  ;  that  it  is  not  applicable 
until  it  has  first  been  proved  that  the  universe  had  a  beginning; 
that,  even  if  it  had  a  beginning,  it  is  a  finite  effect  and  demands 
only  a  finite  cause.  And  these  theists  cannot  answer  these  ques¬ 
tions  by  the  idea  of  cause  alone.  Instead  of  a  therefore  to  every 
wherefore  of  the  skeptic,  which  the  true  idea  of  God  should  give, 


THE  ABSOLUTE  BEING. 


157 


they  have  only  the  child’s  answer,  “  Because,”  which  calls  forth 
the  question  anew  ;  their  argument  is  a  stone  of  Sisyphus  which 
always  rolls  back  on  them.  But  the  existence  of  the  absolute 
Being  is  not  an  inference  from  causal  sequences  ;  it  is  an  ultimate 
principle  of  reason,  a  necessary  law  of  thought,  which  no  think¬ 
ing  can  transcend  or  escape. 

It  is  further  objected  that  the  existence  of  the  absolute  in¬ 
volves  irreconcilable  contradictions.  Mr.  Spencer  says  :  “  If  we 
admit  that  there  can  be  something  uncaused,  there  is  no  reason 
to  assume  a  cause  for  anything.  If  beyond  that  finite  region  over 
which  the  First  Cause  extends,  there  lies  a  region  which  we  are 
compelled  to  regard  as  infinite,  over  which  it  does  not  extend  — 
if  we  admit  that  there  is  an '  infinite  uncaused  surrounding  the 
finite  caused  —  we  tacitly  abandon  the  hypothesis  of  causation  al¬ 
together.”1  This  and  some  other  alleged  contradictions  involved 
in  the  existence  of  the  absolute  arise  from  supposing  that  it  is 
inferred  from  the  existence  of  the  universe  by  the  principle  of 
causation.  There  are  here  two  ultimate  laws  of  thought  instead 
of  one.  One  refers  to  things  that  begin  and  declares  that  every 
beginning  must  have  a  cause.  The  other  affirms  that  there  must 
be  something  that  never  began  to  be,  but  is  unconditioned  and 
absolute  Being.  There  is  no  contradiction  here.  The  assertion 
that  there  must  be  something  which  never  began,  is  no  contradic¬ 
tion  of  the  assertion  that  whatever  does  begin  has  a  cause.  The 
contradiction  is  Mr.  Spencer’s,  who,  in  face  of  the  objection  cited 
above,  himself  admits  causation  in  nature,  and  yet  affirms  in  the 
strongest  language  the  existence  of  absolute  power  which  has  no 
antecedent  cause.  “  The  First  Cause  ”  cannot  itself  be  caused. 

Another  objection  is  that  the  knowledge  of  the  infinite  or  abso¬ 
lute  must  be  infinite  or  absolute  knowledge.  Feuerbach  says  : 

If  thou  tliinkest  the  infinite,  thou  perceivest  and  affirmest  the 
infinitude  of  the  power  of  thy  thought  ;  if  thou  feelest  the  in¬ 
finite,  thou  feelest  and  affirmest  the  infinitude  of  the  power  of 
feeling.”  2 

By  absolute  knowledge  I  understand  knowledge  which  depends 
solely  on  the  mind  knowing,  without  any  action  on  it  of  external 
reality  revealing  itself.  If  this  is  what  the  objection  means,  then 
indeed  man  has  no  such  knowledge  either  of  God  or  of  finite 
things.  Such  archetypal  and  independent  knowledge  is  possible 
in  the  absolute  Reason  alone.  But  no  reason  can  be  given  why 

1  First  Principles,  pp.  37,  38. 

q  Wesen  des  Christenthums,  chap.  i.  §  1. 


158 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


man’s  knowledge  of  God  must  be  absolute  in  this  sense  any  more 
than  his  knowledge  of  finite  reality.  The  absolute  Being  re¬ 
veals  itself,  through  the  constitution  of  man,  in  the  ultimate  and 
necessary  postulate  of  every  line  of  thought  ;  and  man  s  mind 
reacting  on  it  knows  that  the  absolute  Being  exists. 

If  by  absolute  knowledge  the  objector  means  complete  and 
all-comprehending  knowledge  of  the  absolute,  the  same  would 
be  an  equally  valid  objection  against  all  knowledge ;  for  there 
is  nothing  of  which  man  has  such  knowledge.  Every  object 
to  which  he  attends,  if  he  continues  to  think  of  it,  starts  ques¬ 
tions  which  no  man  can  answer,  and  thus  brings  the  abso¬ 
lute  to  view.  Everything  in  revealing  itself  reveals  also  to  the 
thought  the  absolute  Being.  The  objection  then  is  as  valid 
against  all  knowledge  as  against  the  knowledge  of  the  absolute. 
The  limitation  of  knowledge  does  not  preclude  its  reality. 

It  must  be  added  that  in  man’s  implicit  consciousness  there 
may  be  beliefs  controlling  thought  and  action,  which  as  yet  he 
has  not  definitely  formulated  nor  even  apprehended  in  thought. 
Such  in  the  minds  of  children  and  savages  are  the  principles 
that  every  change  has  a  cause,  that  two  straight  lines  cannot 
inclose  a  space,  and  other  first  principles  of  reason.  Such  also 
are  many  beliefs  of  common  sense  regulating  a  man’s  thought 
and  action,  which  he  cannot  state  to  others  nor  even  define 
to  himself  as  reasons  for  his  conclusions  and  actions.  Yet  in 
all  these  cases  the  knowledge  is  real,  though  undefined.  Such 
knowledge  Hamilton  calls  “  the  unpictured  notions  of  intel¬ 
ligence.”  Such  in  the  beginning  of  human  development  are 
man’s  religious  beliefs  and  his  idea  of  a  divinity.  Principles 
and  ideas  thus  originally  unpictured  and  undefined  in  the  im¬ 
plicit  consciousness,  with  the  progressive  development  of  man 
are  developed  in  civilizations  and  in  great  systems  of  empir¬ 
ical,  mathematical,  philosophical  and  theological  science.  In  the 
mind  of  the  writer  of  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis  the  idea  was 
present,  however  inadequately  conceived,  that  God  created  man 
in  his  own  image.  The  whole  history  of  man  and  the  revela¬ 
tion  of  God  in  Christ  and  in  the  establishing  of  his  kingdom 
through  the  ages,  have  been  unfolding  the  significance  of  this 
truth ;  and  to  this  day  it  has  not  been  fully  developed  in  all 
its  significance  and  its  practical  applications.  And  it  is  equally 
possible  for  man  to  have  an  unpictured  notion  of  the  absolute. 

But  whatever  advance  man  may  make  in  the  knowledge  of 
God  and  of  the  universe  in  its  relation  to  him,  and  in  appre- 


THE  ABSOLUTE  BEING. 


159 


hending,  formulating,  systemizing  and  applying  it,  the  absolute 
Being  must  always  transcend  the  man  and  his  knowledge.  He 
can  never  be  taken  up  completely  and  held  in  the  forms  of 
human  thought.  Yet  the  knowledge  is  not  for  this  less  real. 

Mr.  Mansel  objects  :  “  To  have  a  partial  knowledge  of  an 
object  is  to  know  a  part  of  it  but  not  the  whole.  But  the 
part  of  the  infinite  supposed  to  be  known  must  be  itself  either 
infinite  or  finite.  If  infinite,  it  presents  the  same  difficulties  as 
before.  If  finite,  the  point  in  question  is  conceded,  and  our  con¬ 
sciousness  is  allowed  to  be  limited  to  finite  objects.”1  Hamil¬ 
ton  presents  the  objection  in  the  same  form.  This  is  palpable 
logomachy.  It  is  possible  to  know  an  object  in  its  individuality 
and  wholeness  while  the  knowledge  is  partial  and  incomplete. 
I  have  a  slight  acquaintance  with  the  man  who  lives  across  the 
street.  My  partial  knowledge  of  him  will  increase  on  further 
acquaintance.  Now  the  objector  says  that  because  the  knowl¬ 
edge  is  partial,  I  do  not  know  the  man  in  his  wholeness,  but 
only  a  part  of  him  ;  and  he  asks  whether  the  part  is  the  whole 
man.  If  it  is,  then  he  says,  You  know  the  whole  man,  and 
your  knowledge  is  not  partial.  But  if  it  is  a  part,  then  you 
do  not  know  the  man.  I  answer  to  this  paltering  with  words, 
that  I  know  the  man  in  his  personality  as  a  whole,  but  my 
knowledge  of  him  is  incomplete.  So  we  know  God,  the  one 
absolute  Spirit,  but  our  knowledge  of  him  is  incomplete.  So 
Paul  said  :  “  Now  I  know  in  part.” 

An  objection  is  sometimes  urged,  founded  on  the  maxim  that 
like  is  known  only  by  the  like,  and  therefore  the  finite  being 
cannot  know  the  absolute  Being.  This  is  a  misapplication  of 
the  maxim.  Thus  applied  it  would  prove  that  God  cannot  know 
man  any  more  than  man  can  know  God.  But  man,  as  rational 
spirit,  is  like  God,  the  eternal  Spirit.  Therefore,  in  accordance 
with  this  maxim  he  can  know  God  in  his  positive  attributes  as 
Spirit,  though  he  can  define  God’s  infinitude  only  by  negation. 
I  can  know  God  because  I  am  in  his  image  as  a  rational  spirit, 
though  I  am  finite  and  he  is  infinite.  It  does  not  need  infini¬ 
tude  to  know  that  some  infinite  being  exists. 

And  if  this  maxim,  Simile  simili  cognoscitur,  is  pushed  with 
rabbinical  literalness  to  the  extreme,  it  becomes  the  childish 
error,  wide-spread  even  in  systems  of  philosophy,  which,  over¬ 
looking  the  fact  that  knowledge  must  be  the  intellectual  equiv¬ 
alent  of  its  object,  insists  that  no  object  can  be  known  unless 
1  Limits  of  Religious  Thought,  Lect.  iii.  pp.  97. 


160 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


itself,  or  at  least  its  image,  is  actually  present  within  the  mind. 
But  a  man’s  thought  cannot  be  like  a  stone  or  a  tree  ;  therefore 
he  can  have  no  knowledge  of  a  stone  or  a  tree  ;  therefore  he  can 
know  nothing  but  ideas  :  his  knowledge  does  not  reach  beyond 
his  own  self-consciousness.  The  Absolute  itself  becomes  the  uni¬ 
versal  ego ;  and  the  issue  is  idealistic  pantheism. 

The  objection  that  the  knowledge  of  the  absolute  or  infinite 
must  be  absolute  or  infinite  knowledge,  in  each  of  these  forms, 
implies  that  none  but  an  absolute  Being  can  know  God ;  there¬ 
fore,  that  God  could  not  create  a  being  capable  of  knowing  him, 
or  even  of  knowing  the  fact  that  an  absolute  Being  exists.  God 
then  would  no  longer  be  the  absolute  Being,  but  would  himself 
be  limited  by  incapacity  to  create  a  finite  universe  or  to  reveal 
himself  to  rational  beings  in  it,  however  great  their  power  of 
intelligence. 

As  a  last  resort,  it  is  objected  that  the  idea  of  the  Absolute 
is  merely  the  gigantic  shadow  of  the  man  himself.  The  objector 
believes  that  man  is  so  limited  that  he  cannot  know  even  that 
absolute  Being  exists.  What,  then,  is  there  in  a  being  so  lim¬ 
ited  to  cast  on  his  horizon  a  shadow  so  vast  ?  And  what  is 
the  light  obstructed  by  this  being,  yet  encompassing  him,  which 
makes  the  shadow  visible  ?  And  if  man  is  incapable  of  know¬ 
ing  the  existence  of  an  absolute  being,  how  has  this  great  idea 
arisen  in  his  mind,  and  how  does  it  keep  its  steadfast  hold  on 
him  ?  Savage  tribes,  before  they  come  in  contact  with  civilized 
men,  never  have  in  their  languages  any  word  meaning  savage. 
So  soon  as  they  know  themselves  savages  they  are  already  in 
the  light  of  civilization,  and  have  advanced  at  least  one  step 
toward  it.  Man’s  knowledge  of  his  own  dependence  and  finite¬ 
ness  carries  in  it  the  idea  of  the  infinite  and  the  absolute.  The 
existence  of  the  idea  discloses  the  fact  that  he  is  already  in 
the  light  of  the  absolute  Being,  and  competent  to  know  it  if 
it  exists  and  reveals  itself  to  him. 

This  objection,  then,  is  no  more  than  a  poetical  expression 
of  the  old  and  often  refuted  theory  of  the  relativity  of  knowl¬ 
edge,  that  because  a  man  can  know  objects  only  through  his 
own  powers  of  rational  intelligence,  therefore  he  cannot  know 
anything ;  but  all  which  he  looks  on  as  objective  reality  is  an 
illusion,  the  projected  shadows  of  his  own  subjective  impressions. 
It  discredits  all  intuition,  presentative  and  rational,  all  laws  of 
thought,  all  reasoning,  all  human  intelligence  and  reason,  be¬ 
cause  the  supposed  knowledge  is  relative  to  a  mind  knowing, 


THE  ABSOLUTE  BEING.  161 

and  man  knows  only  through  his  powers  of  knowing.  We  are 
under  no  obligation  to  spend  our  lives  re-threshing  threshed 
straw  because  some,  who  do  not  believe  in  the  existence  of  wheat, 
continue  to  thrust  the  empty  straw  beneath  our  flails. 

Thus  it  is  evident  that  the  objections  to  the  reality  of  our 
knowledge  that  the  absolute  Being  exists  are  without  force. 

It  remains  to  notice  some  further  confirmations  of  our  posi¬ 
tion  as  to  the  reality  and  origin  of  this  knowledge. 

The  denial  of  the  possibility  of  knowing  that  absolute  Being 
exists  involves  the  impossibility  of  knowing  any  being,  and  so 
relapses  into  the  complete  Positivism  of  Comte  or  some  form 
of  phenomenalism  ;  and  this  involves  complete  agnosticism  or 
universal  skepticism.  For,  as  Goethe  puts  the  question :  — 

“  What  show  could  be,  unless  of  substance  shown? 

And  what  were  substance,  if  not  shown  to  be?” 

If  there  is  no  absolute  Being,  there  is  no  reality  that  persists  ; 

“  That  changed  through  all,  and  vet  in  all  the  same. 

Great  in  the  earth  as  in  th’  ethereal  flame, 

Warms  in  the  sun,  refreshes  in  the  breeze, 

Glows  in  the  stars,  and  blossoms  in  the  trees; 

Lives  in  all  life,  extends  through  all  extent, 

Spreads  undivided,  operates  unspent.” 

Then  the  fundamental  principle,  not  of  philosophy  and  theol¬ 
ogy  only,  but  also  of  physical  science,  is  subverted  ;  for  science 
rests  on  the  postulate  that  the  sum  of  matter  and  force  is  always 
the  same  and  exists  eternal  without  anything  added  and  without 
anything  annihilated.  Then  the  continuity,  the  unity  and  the 
reality  of  the  universe  are  gone,  and  we  find  ourselves  illusions 
in  a  universe  of  illusions,  and  deluded  with  thinking  that  the 
illusions  are  real. 

It  may  be  said  that  that  which  persists  is  only  force.  But  it 
is  a  necessary  law  of  thought  that  there  can  be  no  action  without 
an  agent,  no  motion  without  something  that  moves,  no  force 
without  a  being.  We  may  explain  matter  dynamically  ;  we 
may  speak  of  dynamids  instead  of  atoms  and  molecules.  But  we 
hypostasize  the  dynamids  all  the  same ;  for  power  persisting  in 
unity  and  identity  is  the  essential  quality  of  a  being. 

In  fact  those  who  now  deny  all  knowledge  of  the  existence  of 
the  Absolute  are  only  those  who  deny  all  knowledge  of  being 
and  limit  knowledge  to  appearance  or  phenomena.  Accordingly 
physical  science  has  left  them  behind.  At  the  very  time  when 

Comte  was  writing  the  Positive  Philosophy,  insisting  that  cause, 

11 


162 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


force,  atoms,  molecules,  ethers  were  metaphysical  ideas  to  be 
rigorously  excluded  from  all  science,  scientists  were  already  work¬ 
ing  out  the  law  of  the  correlation  and  conservation  of  force, 
which  has  brought  these  proscribed  ideas  to  the  front  in  all 
scientific  discussion  and  stakes  the  very  existence  of  physical 
science  on  the  reality  of  the  objects  of  metaphysical  ideas  and 
the  truth  of  metaphysical  principles. 

Another  confirmation  may  be  noticed.  History  shows  that 
when  once  the  human  mind  has  begun  to  think  scientifically,  it 
cannot  rest  in  its  thinking  without  the  idea  of  the  absolute  Being 
and  the  belief  at  least  that  it  exists.  So  Feuerbach  says:  “It 
is  a  general  truth  that  we  feel  a  blank,  a  void,  a  want  in  our¬ 
selves  and  are  consequently  unhappy  and  unsatisfied,  so  long  as 
we  have  not  come  to  the  last  degree  of  a  power,  to  that  than 
which  nothing  greater  can  be  thought.”  And  Zeller  says : 
“  The  spirit  of  man  cannot  be  satisfied,  till  it  finds  in  every  force 
the  manifestation  of  an  original  force  and  in  all  beings  the  prod¬ 
uct  of  an  original  being,  till  the  checkered  manifoldness  of  par¬ 
ticular  laws  is  brought  back  to  a  highest  unity.  The  same  is 
the  inmost  and,  as  it  were,  the  insouling  power  in  the  things.”  1 

This  is  evident  from  the  earnestness  with  which  the  absolute 
Being  has  been  studied  by  the  greatest  thinkers,  and  the  large 
place  which  it  has  held  in  the  whole  history  of  philosophical 
thought.  Ravaisson  says:  “That  at  the  foundation  of  all  knowl¬ 
edge  is  an  absolute  to  which  the  relative  corresponds  as  its 
opposite,  is  what  was  established  more  than  twenty  centuries 
ago,  against  a  doctrine  then  already  prevalent  of  universal  rela¬ 
tivity  and  mobility,  by  the  Platonic  dialectic,  which  broke  the 
way  to  metaphysics.  It  did  more ;  it  showed  that  by  this  abso¬ 
lute,  relations  are  intelligible,  because  it  is  the  measure  by  which 
alone  we  estimate  them.  Metaphysics  in  the  hands  of  its  im¬ 
mortal  founder  did  more ;  it  showed  that  this  absolute,  by  which 
intelligence  measures  the  relative,  is  the  intelligence  itself.”  2 
Sir  William  Hamilton  tells  us :  “  From  Xenophanes  to  Leibnitz, 
the  infinite,  the  absolute,  the  unconditioned,  formed  the  highest 
principle  of  speculation.”  During  all  this  long  period  the  great¬ 
est  minds  and  the  most  profound  thinkers  were  occupied  with 
questions  pertaining  to  the  absolute.  Hamilton  says  :  “  Kant 
accomplished  much.  The  result  of  his  examination  was  the 
abolition  of  the  metaphysical  sciences ;  all  that  is  not  finite,  rela- 

1  Quoted  by  Fliigel,  Die  Spekulative  Theologie  der  Gegenwart,  p.  103. 

2  Rapport,  p.  66,  quoted  by  Rev.  W.  Jackson,  Modern  Skepticism,  p.  532. 


THE  ABSOLUTE  BEING. 


163 


tive  and  phenomenal  is  beyond  the  verge  of  knowledge.”  But 
in  fact,  far  from  abolishing  metapl^sical  science,  Kant’s  writings 
stimulated  metaphysical  inquiry,  especially  as  to  the  existence  of 
the  absolute,  to  intense  activity  which  all  the  political  convul¬ 
sions  of  the  time  could  not  interrupt.  And  this  was  not  confined 
to  Germany.  Cousin’s  lecturing  on  philosophy  in  Paris  was  the 
occasion  of  Hamilton’s  Essay  on  the  Philosophy  of  the  Condi¬ 
tioned.  As  he  himself  says  :  “  Two  thousand  auditors  listened, 
all  with  admiration,  many  with  enthusiasm,  to  the  eloquent  ex¬ 
position  of  doctrine  intelligible  only  to  the  few ;  and  the  oral 
discussion  of  philosophy  awakened  in  Paris  and  in  France  an 
interest  unexampled  since  the  days  of  Abelard.”  In  this  dis¬ 
cussion  of  the  absolute  Hamilton  himself  took  no  inconsider¬ 
able  part,  but  with  the  design  to  show  that  the  discussion  was 
fruitless  and  that  the  expenditure  of  thought  on  it  through  the 
whole  history  of  civilization  had  been  a  waste  of  intellect.  He 
attempts  to  prove  this  by  arguments  —  the  fallacies  already  ex¬ 
posed.  He  also  resorts  to  ridicule,  applying  to  these  thinkers 
the  line,  — 

“  Gens  ratione  ferox  et  mentem  pasta  chiinasris;  ”  1 

feeding  themselves  to  fierceness  on  chimseras  as  the  ancient 
heroes  did  on  the  marrow  of  bears. 

But  Hamilton  has  failed  to  suppress  these  questionings  as 
completely  as  Kant.  The  generation  which  has  followed  him, 
with  its  Spencerian  agnosticism  and  its  theory  of  evolution,  with 
the  cry,  “  Back  to  Kant,”  and  the  revival  of  Hegelianism,  has 
been  thinking  as  earnestly  and  as  universally  on  the  nature  of 
spirit  and  matter  and  force,  on  the  ultimate  ground  and  origin 
of  all  that  is,  and  on  all  the  questions  pertaining  to  the  being  of 
God,  as  any  that  preceded  it ;  and  with  the  result  that  only  an 
inconsiderable  minority  remains  denying  the  knowledge  that 
some  absolute  Being  exists. 

And  this  is  true  of  those  who  hold  non-theistic  theories  of  the 
universe  in  various  forms.  Spencerian  agnostics,  pantheists  of 
all  types,  materialists  and  deists  all  agree  with  theists  in  affirm¬ 
ing  the  knowledge  that  absolute  Being  exists,  and  that  we  know 
it  as  a  first  principle  of  reason  and  law  of  thought.  Only  the 
few  extreme  positivists,  holding  a  sensational  theory  of  knowl¬ 
edge  like  that  of  Comte,  deny  it. 

It  is  evident  therefore  that  the  human  mind  cannot  rid  itself 

1  Philosophy  of  Hamilton,  Wight's  ed.  Phil,  of  the  Conditioned,  pp.  458, 
442,  446. 


164 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


of  the  idea  of  the  absolute.  It  persists  in  the  implicit  conscious¬ 
ness,  regulating  thought,  even  when  theoretically  disclaimed.  It 
is  evident  that  without  the  assumption,  explicit  or  implicit,  that 
the  absolute  Being  exists,  the  reason  of  man  cannot  solve  its 
necessary  problems,  nor  rest  satisfied  with  any  intellectual  at¬ 
tainment,  nor  hold  steadfastly  to  the  reality  of  its  knowledge, 
nor  know  the  continuity,  the  unity  and  the  reality  of  the  uni¬ 
verse.  The  necessary  conclusion  is  that  the  principle  that  the 
absolute  Being  exists  is  a  primitive  and  necessary  law  of  thought, 
a  constituent  element  of  reason,  and  a  necessary  postulate  in  all 
thinking  about  being. 

In  this  exposition  of  the  origin  of  the  idea  of  the  absolute 
Being  and  our  belief  of  its  existence,  I  have  set  forth  the  so- 
called  a  priori  argument  for  the  existence  of  God  in  its  true 
significance.  This  is  an  argument  from  the  idea  of  the  absolute 
or  perfect  Being  to  its  existence.  In  order  to  the  conclusiveness 
of  this  argument  it  must  be  shown  both  that  the  idea  of  the 
absolute  Being  is  a  necessary  idea  of  reason,  and  that  the  exist¬ 
ence  of  the  Being  is  necessarily  included  in  the  idea ;  that  is, 
its  existence  must  be  as  necessary  to  the  reason  as  the  idea  of  it. 
This  is  what  has  been  shown.  That  the  absolute  Being  exists 
is  a  necessary  principle  of  reason,  self-evident  to  rational  intui¬ 
tion  ;  it  is  the  necessary  presupposition  in  all  knowledge  of  be¬ 
ing  and  appears  as  regulative  of  all  thinking  so  soon  as  being 
is  known.  Kant  also  presents  the  a  priori  argument.  In  the 
Critique  of  Pure  Reason  he  finds  the  idea  of  God  to  be  a  neces¬ 
sary  idea  of  the  reason.  And  it  is  not  merely  the  idea,  but  also 
the  existence  of  God  which  is  necessary  to  reason  in  order  that 
it  may  solve  its  necessary  problems  and  attain  a  rational  com¬ 
prehension  of  the  universe  in  scientific  knowledge.  That  abso¬ 
lute  Being  exists  would  be  acknowledged  by  Kant  as  a  primitive 
principle  or  constituent  element  of  reason,  not  needing  to  be 
accounted  for  or  proved  otherwise.  But  on  account  of  his  phe¬ 
nomenalism  the  absolute  remains  to  the  pure  reason  an  unknow¬ 
able  ;  it  exists,  but  what  it  is  we  know  not.  He  afterwards  finds 
in  the  practical  reason,  that  is,  in  the  sphere  of  moral  conscious¬ 
ness,  contents  for  knowing  what  the  absolute  is. 

Such  is  the  so-called  a  priori  argument  in  its  true  significance. 

We  find  here  in  a  first  principle  of  reason  the  starting-point 
for  the  whole  course  of  evidence  of  the  existence  of  God  as 
found  by  reflective  thought.  And  because  this  principle  asserts 
itself  in  consciousness  on  occasion  of  our  knowing  that  some 


THE  ABSOLUTE  BEING. 


165 


being  exists,  and  presents  as  self-evident  the  existence  of  absolute 
Being,  we  see  the  significance  of  its  name  as  the  ontological  ar¬ 
gument.  But  it  is  not  an  argument,  it  is  a  necessary  principle 
or  law  of  thought. 

The  absolute  Being  is  known  to  the  reason  as  the  ground  of 
the  universe  and  manifesting  itself  in  it.  Therefore  we  know 
that  there  are  in  the  absolute  all  the  potencies  which  account 
for  the  universe  and  manifest  themselves  in  it.  Thus  by  ex¬ 
ploring  the  universe,  physical  and  spiritual,  we  can  know  what 
the  absolute  is  as  continuously  revealing  itself  in  it.  And  this 
Kant  also  recognizes  as  a  principle  of  reason  :  “If  the  con¬ 
ditioned  is  given,  the  whole  of  the  conditions,  and  consequently 
the  absolutely  unconditioned  is  also  given,  whereby  alone  the  for¬ 
mer  was  possible.”  1 

The  true  philosophy  of  human  knowledge  teaches  that  knowl¬ 
edge  is  ontological  in  its  beginning,  that  is,  it  begins  as  the 
knowledge  of  being  ;  and  it  is  always  the  knowledge  of  being. 

When  we  know,  in  the  universe,  being,  we  necessarily  know 
absolute  Being,  the  ground  of  it  and  revealed  in  it. 

When  we  know,  in  the  universe,  power  or  causal  energy,  we 
necessarily  know  the  absolute  Being  as  Power,  the  original  and 
continuous  source  of  all  finite  power. 

When  we  know,  in  the  universe,  cause,  we  necessarily  know 
the  absolute  Being  as  first  and  all-originating  Cause. 

When  we  know,  in  the  constitution  and  course  of  the  universe, 
physical  and  spiritual,  the  manifestation  of  reason,  we  know  the 
absolute  Being  as  absolute  Reason,  the  Light  that  lighteth  every 
man.2 

At  last  when  we  find  in  the  universe  Christ  and  his  kingdom, 
we  know  the  absolute  Being  as  universal  Love,  the  Redeemer  of 
men  from  sin. 

But  before  we  can  proceed  in  this  search  after  God,  the  vari¬ 
ous  non-theistic  theories  of  the  universe  must  be  noticed. 

1  Critique  of  Pure  Reason,  Antinomy  of  Pure  Reason,  sects,  i.,  vii. 

2  Anaxagoras  introduced  into  Greek  philosophy  the  truth  that  the  universe 
is  grounded  in  reason  and  that  its  constitution  and  order  can  be  explained  only 
on  the  assumption  of  eternal  Reason  energizing  in  it.  This  was  accepted  by 
Socrates  and  elaborated  into  the  argument  from  final  causes  which  we  find  in 
Xenophon’s  Memorabilia.  Plato  and  Aristotle  also  accepted  and  taught  this 
conception  of  the  universe. 


CHAPTER  IX. 


THE  ABSOLUTE  BEING  AND  NON-THEISTIC  THEORIES. 

It  is  to  the  credit  of  humanity  that  men  are  ashamed  to  be 
called  atheists.  At  present  positivists,  agnostics  and  nearly  all 
schools  of  non-theistic  thought  claim  to  have  a  religion  and  an 
object  of  worship,  and  refuse  and  resent  the  name  of  atheist.  In 
view  of  this  Heinrich  Heine  calls  the  pantheist  “  a  bashful  athe¬ 
ist.”  This  objection  to  the  name  is  the  outcry  of  the  human  soul 
shrinking  from  being  thought  to  be  and  even  from  thinking  it¬ 
self  to  be  without  God  in  the  world. 

Etymologically  atheist  means  simply  not  a  theist.  If  I  use  the 
word  atheism,  it  will  be  in  this  comprehensive  sense,  as  includ¬ 
ing  all  non-theistic  theories  of  the  universe  ;  and  I  use  it  because 
there  is  no  other  word  which  so  exactly  expresses  this  meaning. 

Atheism  is  not  commonly  the  assertion  of  positive  knowledge 
that  God  does  not  exist.  The  positive  assertion  that  there  is  no 
God  is  commonly  the  atheism  of  passion  and  hatred.  Such  was 
the  atheism  of  the  French  revolutionists  of  the  last  century  and 
such  is  that  of  the  Nihilists  and  many  of  the  Socialists  now. 
Atheism  may  rest  on  immoral  character  rather  than  on  intellect¬ 
ual  conviction,  and  thus  may  arise  because  the  belief  in  God 
stands  in  the  way  of  plans  of  wickedness  or  of  anarchical  destruc¬ 
tion  of  society.  It  may  have  been  occasioned  by  the  oppression 
of  a  hierarchy  or  a  despotism  in  the  name  of  religion,  or  by  gross 
misrepresentations  of  theism  in  whatever  way  caused.  In  a  re¬ 
cent  article  in  the  Independent  by  Courtlandt  Palmer,  President 
of  the  Nineteenth  Century  Club,  the  following  is  presented,  not 
as  his  own  belief,  but  as  the  argument  of  the  atheist :  “  Only 
in  the  denial  of  a  personal  God  can  morality  exist,  since,  given 
a  God,  obedience  to  his  commands  becomes  obligatory  ;  such 
obedience,  being  obligatory,  degenerates  into  slavery,  and  slavery 
negatives  morality,  since  morality  consists  in  freedom  ;  that  is, 
in  the  freedom  of  the  individual  to  choose  for  himself,  without 
compulsion,  the  better  part.  Not  only  is  such  submission  to 
the  will  of  God  a  divine  thraldom,  it  is  a  human  thraldom  also, 


THE  ABSOLUTE  BEING  AND  NON-THEISTIC  THEORIES.  167 


since  the  will  of  God  can  only  be  made  known  to  men  by  men 
like  in  all  respects  to  themselves  ;  therefore  to  submit  to  God  is 
only  to  submit  to  fallible  ecclesiastics  who  assume  to  construe 
him.”  This  implies  that  the  enforcement  of  just  law  under  the 
authority  of  any  government  is  slavery  ;  that  all  authority  of 
government  is  necessarily  despotism  to  be  resisted  and  destroyed ; 
that  subjection  to  law,  however  just,  is  slavery;  that  submission 
to  God,  the  absolute  Reason,  administering  the  universe  accord¬ 
ing  to  the  eternal  principles  of  wisdom  and  love,  is  slavery. 
This  reasoning,  if  so  it  may  be  called,  can  issue  only  in  uni¬ 
versal  anarchy  and  the  disorganization  of  all  society.  It  is  pre¬ 
cisely  the  principle  declaimed  by  Bakunin  and  the  Nihilists.  If 
this  is  the  argument  on  which  the  defense  of  atheism  must  rest, 
its  defense  is  its  sufficient  refutation.1 

Atheism  is  commonly  the  denial  that  man  has  any  knowledge 
of  God  or  any  reasonable  grounds  for  believing  that  any  God 
exists. 

God  is  the  absolute  Spirit,  with  whom  the  worshiper  may  come 
into  communication.  Kant  is  right  in  saying  :  114  The  conception 
of  God  involves  not  merely  a  blindly  operating  Nature  as  the 
eternal  root  of  things,  but  a  Supreme  Being  that  must  be  the 
author  of  all  things  by  free  and  understanding  action  ;  and  it  is 
this  conception  which  alone  has  any  interest  for  us.” 

The  polytheism  and  fetichism  of  ruder  peoples  are  not  properly 
called  atheism,  for  they  recognize  supernatural  and  superhuman 
divinities  corresponding  with  the  highest  idea  of  the  absolute 
Spirit  attained  by  them.  In  our  modern  civilization  intelligent 
people  will  not  fall  back  into  these  errors.  The  atheism  of  our 
time  will  be  the  denial  of  all  knowledge  of  the  one  supreme  God, 
the  absolute  Spirit,  and  will  fall  back  on  some  theory  of  the  uni¬ 
verse  which  excludes  a  divinity  of  conscious  intelligence,  wisdom 
and  love. 

The  non-theistic  theories  may  be  included  in  two  classes,  ac¬ 
cording  to  their  position  in  respect  to  the  knowledge  of  the  abso¬ 
lute  Being. 

I.  Theories  denying  all  knowledge  of  the  existence  of  the  abso¬ 
lute  Being. 

II.  Theories  asserting  knowledge  of  the  existence  of  the  abso¬ 
lute  Being. 

1.  Agnosticism. 

2.  Monism. 

1  Phil.  Basis  of  Theism,  pp.  486,  482. 


168 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


(a)  Pantheistic  Monism. 

Ontological  Pantheism. 

Idealistic  Pantheism. 

(b)  Materialistic  Monism. 

Agnosticism  affirms  that  man  has  knowledge  of  the  existence 
of  the  absolute  Being,  but  cannot  know  what  it  is,  further  than 
that  it  is  the  Power  everywhere  present  and  manifesting  itself  in 
all  phenomena. 

Monism  affirms  that  man  has  knowledge  of  the  existence  of 
the  absolute  Being  and  is  able  also  to  define  what  it  is.  This 
it  does  in  affirming  that  the  absolute  Being,  that  is  the  ultimate 
ground  of  the  universe,  is  identical  with  the  universe  itself. 

Theism  regards  the  universe  as  the  whole  of  finite  realities  ex¬ 
isting  in  a  unity  by  their  common  and  continuous  relations  to 
God,  the  absolute  Spirit.  Thus  theism  distinguishes  the  universe 
from  God  on  whom  it  is  always  dependent. 

Monism  annuls  this  distinction  and  teaches  that  the  universe 
and  the  absolute  are  one  and  the  same  being  in  two  different 
aspects. 

According  to  theism  the  unity  of  all  finite  beings  with  one  an¬ 
other  and  with  God  is  rational,  dynamical  and  moral.  Accord¬ 
ing  to  monism  it  is  identity  of  substance  or  being. 

Pantheistic  monism  recognizes  the  absolute  Being,  as  evolving 
continuously  into  the  universe  and  thus  identical  with  it.  The 
universe  evolving  and  the  universe  evolved  in  identit}r  are  the 
one  absolute  Being.  The  necessary  inference  is  that  the  only 
real  being  is  the  absolute  ;  in  the  finite  universe  are  no  real  be¬ 
ings,  but  only  phenomena  or  manifestations  of  the  one  only  abso¬ 
lute  Being. 

Ontological  pantheism  defines  the  absolute  Being  as  the  one 
only  substance  evolving  in  the  universe.  Idealistic  pantheism 
supposes  the  absolute  to  be  unconscious  thought  or  will  or  reason 
evolving  into  all  that  is.  J.  G.  Fichte  proposed  to  show  that 
“  the  one  original  only  substance  is  the  Ego  ;  in  this  one  sub¬ 
stance  are  posited  all  possible  accidents  and  consequently  all 
possible  realities.”  But  the  universal  Ego,  as  he  develops  it,  is 
essentially  the  unconscious  moral  order  of  the  universe. 

The  conception  of  unconscious  and  impersonal  thought  or  rea¬ 
son  or  spirit  evolving  in  the  universe  may  be  illustrated  by  the 
analogy  of  the  mysterious  principle  of  life,  the  vital  force,  what¬ 
ever  it  may  be,  evolving  in  an  organism  and  thus  revealing  itself. 
And  the  evolution  of  the  physical  universe  has  a  closer  analogy 


THE  ABSOLUTE  BEING  AND  NON-THEISTIC  THEORIES.  169 


with  organic  growth  than  with  mechanism.  Hence  the  concep¬ 
tion  of  some  of  the  Greek  philosophers  that  the  universe  is  a  liv¬ 
ing  organism  is  not  so  strange  as  at  first  it  seems.  From  this  it 
was  an  easy  transition  to  the  conception  of  God  as  the  vitalizing 
energy  or  soul  of  the  world.  This  type  of  thought  is  allied  to 
idealistic  pantheism. 

Materialistic  monism  is  the  theory  that  matter  with  the  force 
essential  in  it  is  eternal  and  that  all  the  realities  in  the  universe 
are  matter  and  force  in  different  modes  of  existence  ;  that  thus 
the  universe  contains  no  rational  spirit  and  is  transcended  by  no 
absolute  Being ;  its  ongoing  is  only  “  the  redistribution  of  matter 
and  force.” 

Pantheism  recognizes  the  absolute  Being  and  denies  the  real 
being  of  the  finite  universe.  It  has  therefore  been  called  acosmic 
pantheism. 

Materialistic  monism  affirms  the  eternity  of  matter  and  denies 
the  existence  of  any  absolute  Being  transcending  it.  It  has 
therefore  been  called  atheistic  pancosmism. 

It  must  be  noticed,  however,  that  materialistic  monists  un¬ 
consciously  change  the  essential  meaning  of  matter.  They  no 
longer  treat  it  as  that  which  is  contained  in  and  occupies  space, 
but  as  something  which  transcends  both  matter  and  mind,  as 
we  know  them,  and  is  the  common  ground  of  both.  Noire,  in 
expounding  his  cosmogony  of  evolution  from  the  originative  mat¬ 
ter  (Staff),  predicates  of  it  two  attributes,  mobility  and  sensi¬ 
tivity.  Thus  he  abandons  pure  materialism  and  identifies  matter 
essentially  with  the  one  only  substance  of  ontological  pantheism. 
The  same  is  true  of  Professor  Clifford,  who  says:  “A  moving 
molecule  of  inorganic  matter  possesses  a  small  piece  of  mind- 
stuff.” 

Agnosticism  agrees  with  theism  in  affirming  that  the  absolute 
Being  exists.  Monism  in  both  forms  agrees  with  theism  in  this, 
and  also  in  affirming  that  man  has  knowledge  of  what  it  is.  In 
their  conception  of  what  the  absolute  Being  is,  many  of  the  pan¬ 
theists  agree  in  important  particulars  with  theists. 

Monism  in  both  its  forms  denies  of  the  absolute  Being  all  in¬ 
telligent  and  conscious  action  and  purpose,  except  as  it  comes  to 
consciousness  in  man. 

These  four  non-theistic  theories  of  the  universe  will  be  sev¬ 
erally  examined  more  particularly. 

“  Physicus,”  in  A  Candid  Examination  of  Theism,  says  : 
“A  favorite  piece  of  apologetic  juggling  is  that  of  first  demolish- 


170 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


ing  atheism,  pantheism,  materialism,  etc.,  by  successively  calling 
on  them  to  explain  the  mystery  of  self-existence,  and  then  tacitly 
assuming  that  the  need  of  such  an  explanation  is  absent  in  the 
case  of  theism  —  as  though  the  attribute  in  question  were  more 
conceivable  when  posited  in  a  Deity  than  when  posited  else¬ 
where.”  This  gross  misrepresentation  at  the  beginning  of  the 
book  augurs  ill  for  the  candor  announced  in  the  title.  Theists 
never  attempt  to  explain  the  mystery  of  self-existence.  In  com¬ 
mon  with  agnostics,  pantheists  and  materialists,  theists  assume 
the  existence  of  some  self-existent  Being  as  a  necessary  principle 
of  reason  and  law  of  thought.  What  they  attempt  to  explain  is 
the  universe.  In  doing  this  they  seek  to  ascertain  all  which  may 
be  known  of  the  absolute  Being  acknowledged  to  be  everywhere 
manifesting  itself  in  the  universe.  The  disproof  of  the  non- 
theistic  theories  is  found  in  the  positive  evidence  of  the  existence 
of  God,  the  absolute  Spirit,  and  in  the  impossibility  of  account¬ 
ing  for  and  explaining  the  universe  or  even  of  attaining  a  sci¬ 
entific  knowledge  of  it  without  the  recognition  of  God.  The 
non-theistic  theories  are  considered  first  in  order  clearly  to  appre¬ 
hend  what  they  are,  to  point  out  the  difficulties  and  contra¬ 
dictions  in  them  and  to  show  that  they  entirely  fail  to  account 
for  or  explain  the  universe. 

I.  The  denial  of  all  knowledge  of  the  existence 
OF  ABSOLUTE  Being.  —  Atheism  in  this  form  is  represented  by 
Comte.  It  affirms  that  there  is  no  rational  necessity  of  form¬ 
ing  a  theory  of  the  universe.  It  belongs  to  human  thought 
and  intelligence  only  to  observe,  classify  and  coordinate  phe¬ 
nomena,  without  attempting  to  go  behind  them  to  any  reality 
that  acts  or  appears  or  is  manifested  in  them.  The  phenomena 
are  sufficient  of  and  for  themselves,  and  it  is  not  legitimate  for 
scientific  thought  to  attempt  to  refer  them  to  any  deeper  reality, 
to  find  for  them  any  all-comprehending  unity,  or  any  ultimate 
ground,  or  any  rational  end.  There  is  no  reasonableness  objec¬ 
tive  in  the  universe  and  no  reason  manifested  in  its  constitution 
or  course  of  action  and  development.  As  Chauncey  Wright  ex¬ 
pressed  it,  all  the  shifting  and  drifting  phenomena  are  nothing 
but  “cosmical  weather.” 

This  form  of  atheism  is  incompatible  with  the  knowledge  of 
the  universe  or  of  any  being  in  it,  as  really  as  with  the  knowl¬ 
edge  of  God.  It  implies  that  real  knowledge  of  anything  is  im» 
possible  to  man.1 


1  Phil.  Basis  of  Theism,  pp.  428-434. 


THE  ABSOLUTE  BEING  AND  NON-THEISTIC  THEORIES.  171 


And  it  is  only  on  this  supposition  that  atheism  in  this  form  is 
possible.  Comte  could  consistently  refuse  to  consider  the  prob¬ 
lem  of  forming  a  theory  of  the  universe,  because  he  denied  all 
knowledge  of  being  and  rejected  as  unscientific  the  ideas  of  force, 
cause,  molecules  and  ethers.  These  ideas  are  metaphysical,  but 
not  unscientific.  Physical  science  itself  acknowledges  their  real¬ 
ity,  and  has  therefore  rejected  Comte’s  positivism  as  inadequate 
for  the  purposes  of  science.  The  continuous  use  of  metaphys¬ 
ical  ideas  and  principles  is  essential  to  the  progress,  and  even 
to  the  existence,  of  physical  science.  And  all  who  believe  that 
in  every  act  there  is  an  agent,  in  every  motion  something  that 
moves  and  something  that  caused  the  motion,  all  who  believe 
that  force  is  other  than  motion  and  cause  more  than  an  ante¬ 
cedent,  all  who  believe  that  they  have  real  knowledge  of  beings 
and  not  merely  of  a  phantasmagoria  of  subjective  impressions, 
all  these  must  also  believe  that  absolute  Being  exists.  If  some¬ 
thing  exists  now,  something  must  have  existed  always.  And 
all  who  believe  that  something  has  existed  always  have  already 
accepted  the  problem  of  finding  a  theory  of  the  universe  and  are 
seeking  its  solution.  Comte  was  right  in  saying  that  if  we  admit 
any  cause  we  must  also  admit  God,  the  first  cause. 

Thus  the  existence  of  the  absolute  Being  forces  itself  on  human 
thought.  Man  cannot  rid  himself  of  it.  It  underlies  his  think¬ 
ing  whether  he  recognizes  it  or  not. 

It  may  be  added  that  it  is  a  necessity  of  human  reason  to  seek 
to  find  a  theory  of  the  universe.  The  positivist  objection  to  it  is 
an  objection  in  the  name  of  science  against  reason  itself.  It  is 
the  fatal  mistake  of  pitting  science  against  reason.  Whatever 
reality  is  brought  to  the  notice  of  man,  the  necessary  and  always 
urgent  problem  of  the  reason  is  to  find  its  relation  to  other  real¬ 
ity  in  the  unity  of  a  scientific  system ;  dynamically,  by  finding  a 
cause  of  all  beginning  and  change  ;  rationally,  by  ascertaining 
what  rational  idea  or  truth  it  expresses,  under  what  rational  law 
it  acts,  and  what  rational  end  it  is  tending  to  realize.  It  is  this 
necessary  demand  of  reason  which  in  all  ages  has  stimulated  to 
scientific  inquiry.  The  irrepressible  demand  of  reason  for  the 
comprehension  of  particular  things  in  dynamic  and  rational  unity 
in  a  system,  pushes  the  thought  onward  to  find  the  unity  of  all 
things  in  one  all-comprehending  system.  The  attempt  to  con¬ 
struct  a  theory  of  the  universe  is,  therefore,  reasonable  and  legit¬ 
imate.  And  if  so,  the  theistic  theory  is  scientifically  as  legitimate 
as  any  other.1 

1  Professor  Clifford  says:  “This  world  which  I  perceive  is  my  perception 


172 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


II.  Spencerian  Agnosticism.  —  In  opposition  to  Spencerian 
agnosticism,  theism  affirms  that  man  has  positive,  though  inade¬ 
quate  knowledge  of  what  the  absolute  Being  is.  Mr.  Spencer’s 
theory  of  the  universe  is  not  properly  called  agnosticism.  Ag¬ 
nosticism  etymologically  means  the  denial  of  all  knowledge. 
Thus  it  is  properly  equivalent  to  universal  skepticism.  The 
Spencerian  agnosticism  not  only  recognizes  man’s  knowledge  of 
the  universe,  but  also  of  the  absolute  Being  itself  as  existing,  as 
omnipresent  Power,  and  as  manifesting  or  revealing  itself  in  all 
the  phenomena  of  the  universe.  Hence  it  is  only  a  partial 
agnosticism. 

This  agnosticism  may  arise  from  attempting  to  develop  what 
the  absolute  is  from  its  a  priori  idea.  In  this  way  we  get  only 
negations  ;  the  absolute  is  the  unconditioned,  the  unlimited,  the 
independent.  Thus  the  word  remains  void  of  positive  contents, 
a  mere  adjective  without  a  substantive,  negation  with  no  reality 
of  which  it  can  be  predicated.  Sir  William  Hamilton  and  Mr. 
Mansel  are  recent  representatives  of  this  type  of  thought. 

The  other  and  the  only  true  way,  in  which  what  the  absolute 
is  can  be  known,  is  by  studying  its  manifestation  of  itself  in  the 
universe.  All  Spencerian  agnostics  and  all  monists  agree  with 
theists  that  the  absolute  is  the  omnipresent  Power  which  is  man¬ 
ifested  or  revealed  in  the  universe.  Then  in  the  absolute  Being 
must  be  all  the  potencies  which  are  necessary  to  account  for  the 
universe  ;  and  these  are  revealed  in  it  and  may  be  known.  This 
is  the  tlieistic  method ;  and  as  inferring  from  an  effect  the  nature 
of  a  cause  whose  existence  is  acknowledged,  it  is  legitimate  and 

and  nothing  more.”  This  theory  of  knowledge  is  humorously  alluded  to  in 
Through  the  Looking  Glass.  Alice  went  with  Tweedledum  and  Tweedledee 
to  see  the  Red  King.  He  was  asleep,  and  Tweedledee  asked  her,  “  What 
do  you  suppose  he  is  dreaming  about?”  “Nobody  can  guess  that,”  replied 
Alice.  “  Why,  about  you,”  Tweedledee  exclaimed,  clapping  his  hands  tri¬ 
umphantly;  “and  if  he  left  off  dreaming  about  you,  where  do  you  suppose 
you ’d  be?  ”  “  Where  I  am  now,  of  course,”  said  Alice.  “  Not  you,”  Twee¬ 

dledee  retorted  contemptuously;  “you’d  be  nowhere.  Why  you’re  only  a 
sort  of  thing  in  his  dream.”  “If  that  there  king  was  to  awake,”  added  he, 
“you’d  go  out  —  bang  —  just  like  a  candle.”  “I  shouldn’t,”  exclaimed 
Alice  indignantly;  “besides,  if  I’m  only  a  sort  of  thing  in  his  dream,  what 
are  you,  I  should  like  to  know?”  “Hush”  fried  she,  “  you ’ll  be  waking 
him,  1  ’m  afraid,  if  you  make  so  much  noise.”  “  Well,  it ’s  no  use  your  talk¬ 
ing  about  waking  him,”  said  Tweedledum,  “when  you’re  only  one  of  the 
things  in  his  dream.  You  know  very  well  that  you ’re  not  real.”  “I  am 
real,”  Alice  said,  and  began  to  cry;  “if  I  wasn’t  real  I  shouldn’t  be  able  to 
cry.” 


THE  ABSOLUTE  BEING  AND  NON-THEISTIC  THEORIES.  173 


accordant  with  the  method  of  science.  No  finite  mind,  beginning 
with  the  a  'priori  idea  of  the  absolute,  can  ascertain  what  it  is  by 
an  analysis  of  the  idea  or  deduction  from  it ;  that  would  imply 
that  the  finite  mind  had  a  priori  the  idea  of  the  absolute  com¬ 
prehending  all  its  contents  and  significance.  Human  reason,  by 
the  law  of  its  own  being  as  reason,  knows  that  some  uncondi¬ 
tioned  Being  exists.  It  can  know  what  it  is  only  by  knowing 
what  it  has  revealed  of  itself  in  the  universe. 

The  very  fact  that  the  absolute  manifests  itself  in  the  universe 
implies  that  it  is  not  unknowable  in  itself.  It  is  unknowable 
only  so  far  as  it  has  not  revealed  itself,  or  as  our  minds  are  not 
great  enough  to  take  in  all  the  facts  and  significance  of  the  rev¬ 
elation.  If  the  absolute  Being  is  manifested  in  all  the  ongoing 
of  the  universe,  then  with  every  enlargement  of  knowledge  and 
capacity  the  finite  mind,  so  long  as  it  exists,  may  continue  to 
advance  in  the  knowledge  of  God.  It  is  only  the  absurd,  it  is 
only  that  which  contradicts  the  necessary  principles  of  reason, 
which  is  unknowable  in  itself  and  constitutes  an  absolute  bar  to 
knowledge.  If  the  absolute  exists  and  manifests  itself  in  the 
finite,  then  it  cannot  be  unknowable  in  itself  but  must  be  essen¬ 
tially  intelligible.  Also,  there  can  be  no  contradiction  between 
the  absolute  and  the  finite.  The  finite  is  the  medium  originating 
from  and  ever  dependent  on  the  absolute,  through  which  the 
absolute  is  forever  manifesting  or  revealing  itself. 

A  second  source  of  agnosticism  is  that  the  a  priori  idea  of  the 
absolute,  with  which  the  inquirer  starts  and  which  he  attempts 
to  develop,  is  itself  a  false  idea.  Then,  as  developed,  it  is  found 
to  be  unthinkable  and  in  itself  unknowable. 

The  absolute  is  falsely  defined  to  be  that  which  exists  out 
of  all  relations.  Whereas  it  is  that  which  exists  unconditioned 
by  relations  independent  of  itself.  The  universe  which  is  in 
relation  to  the  absolute  is  always  dependent  on  it  for  its  own 
existence.  It  is  conditioned  by  the  absolute,  but  the  absolute  is 
not  conditioned  by  it  in  any  necessary  relation.  Closely  allied  to 
this  is  the  conception  of  the  absolute  as  the  thing  in  itself,  out 
of  all  relation  to  our  rational  faculties.  In  attempting  to  deduce 
from  this  idea  what  the  absolute  is,  it  is  found  to  be  in  itself  un¬ 
intelligible  and  unthinkable,  a  mere  symbol  of  the  cessation  of 
thought ;  and  any  revelation  of  it  to  a  rational  mind  is  there¬ 
fore  impossible. 

The  idea  of  the  absolute  has  also  been  falsely  identified  with 
the  idea  of  the  All ,  the  mathematical  sum  total  of  all  that  is. 


174 


THE  SELF-RE YELATION  OF  GOD. 


Thus  conceived  it  would  be  the  sum  of  all  things  ;  it  would  be 
composed  of  parts;  it  would  be  limited.  The  absolute  Being, 
thus  falsely  conceived,  would  involve  contradiction  and  absurdity ; 
it  would  be  in  itself  unintelligible  and  unthinkable.  Hamilton 
exemplifies  this:  “Does  not  the  infinite  contain  the  finite?  If  it 
does,  then  it  contains  what  has  parts  and  is  divisible ;  if  it  does 
not,  then  it  is  exclusive  ;  the  finite  is  out  of  the  infinite ;  and  the 
infinite  is  conditioned,  limited,  restricted,  finite.”  1 

Another  false  idea  of  the  absolute  is  that  it  is  the  universal, 
which  resolves  itself  into  the  indeterminate.  In  forming  a  gen¬ 
eral  notion  by  resemblance,  as  we  enlarge  the  extent  of  the  no¬ 
tion  we  exclude  more  and  more  qualities  from  its  content.  The 
notion,  animal ,  has  fewer  essential  qualities  than  the  notion, 
horse.  If  we  continue  to  enlarge  the  extent,  the  ultimate  notion 
would  exclude  all  distinctive  qualities  ;  it  would  have  no  essence 
and  would  be  entirely  indeterminate.  It  would  be  the  same  as 
nothing.  If  it  is  called  Pure  Being  it  is  not  the  less  indetermi¬ 
nate.  We  simply  hypostasize  the  copula  is.  Here  again  the 
absolute  must  be  unknowable  and  unthinkable  in  itself,  a  mere 
symbol  of  the  cessation  of  thought.  Thus  we  have  the  error, 
common  both  in  theology  and  philos*  »phy,  of  mistaking  the  pro¬ 
cesses  and  creations  of  logical  thought  for  concrete  beings,  their 
actions  and  relations ;  of  shutting  the  mind  within  abstract 
thought,  the  objects  of  which  are  general  notions,  and  neglecting 
concrete  thinking,  the  objects  of  which  are  real  beings  and  their 
real  interactions. 

A  third  source  of  agnosticism  is,  that  in  developing  the  idea  of 
the  absolute  the  reasoning  rests  on  the  false  maxim  that  all  defi¬ 
nition  limits.  2 

This  maxim  sweeps  the  whole  board.  In  applying  it,  it  is 
said  that  the  absolute  cannot  be  a  personal  being,  because  per¬ 
sonality  would  distinguish  it  from  the  impersonal,  and  therefore 
would  limit  it.  But  the  same  would  be  true  of  every  attribute 
and  every  act  and  every  mode  of  existence.  The  absolute  can¬ 
not  be  a  power,  nor  a  being,  nor  even  absolute,  because  these 
predications  define  and  therefore  limit  it. 

And  to  this  length  some  agnostics  actually  carry  the  applica¬ 
tion  of  the  maxim.  They  insist  that  the  absolute  Being  is  lim¬ 
ited  and  ceases  to  be  the  absolute,  if  it  has  any  known  attributes, 
if  it  acts  in  producing  any  finite  being  or  any  effects  in  time,  if 

1  Letter  to  H.  Calderwood,  Metaphysics,  p.  685. 

2  Phil.  Basis  of  Theism,  pp.  176-178. 


THE  ABSOLUTE  BEING  AND  NON-THEISTIC  THEORIES.  175 


/ 


it  coexists  with  finite  beings,  if  finite  beings  have  real  existence, 
if  the  absolute  is  not  both  the  finite  and  the  infinite,  the  good 
and  the  evil,  the  holy  and  the  sinful,  the  subject  of  all  incompat¬ 
ible  qualities,  if  it  is  in  any  relation  to  anything,  or  distinct  from 
anything,  if  it  can  be  in  any  way  defined.  It  is  then  divested  of 
every  quality,  power  and  attribute  of  a  being,  it  is  the  subject 
of  all  qualities  and  yet  of  none,  the  unity  of  all  contradictions. 
In  developing  this  application  of  the  maxim  Mr.  Mansel  says  : 
“  It  is  obvious  that  the  infinite  cannot  be  distinguished  as  such 
from  the  finite,  by  the  absence  of  any  quality  which  the  finite 
possesses ;  for  such  absence  would  be  a  limitation.”  But  as 
finiteness  means  limitation  we  have  here  the  grave  assertion  that 
the  absence  of  limitation  from  the  infinite  would  be  a  limitation 
of  the  infinite.  And  the  whole  argument  founded  on  this  maxim 
is  on  a  level  with  this  logomachy.  Thus  the  absolute  becomes 
a  zero,  a  symbol  of  the  cessation  of  thought.  Hamilton  himself 
says  :  “  A  negative  notion  is  only  the  negation  of  a  notion  ;  we 
think  only  by  the  attribution  of  certain  qualities,  and  the  nega¬ 
tion  of  these  qualities  and  of  this  attribution  is  simply  in  so  far  a 
denial  of  our  thinking  at  all,  .  .  .  The  infinite  is  conceived  only 
by  the  thinking  away  of  every  character  by  which  the  finite  was 
conceived  ;  in  other  words,  we  conceive  it  only  as  inconceivable.” 
Hamilton  tells  us  that  we  have  a  negative  knowledge  of  the 
absolute  and  that  a  negative  knowledge  is  no  knowledge  ;  yet 
he  defines  the  absolute  and  subdivides  it,  and  argues  at  length 
what  it  must  be  and  what  it  cannot  be,  in  order  to  prove  that  we 
can  have  no  knowledge  whatever  of  what  it  is.  Thus  agnostics, 
while  making  the  strongest  affirmations  that  the  absolute  Being 
exists,  resort  to  arguments  to  prove  that  we  do  not  know  what  it 
is,  which  equally  prove  that  it  is  not  known  to  exist ;  and  more 
than  this,  which  not  merely  prove  that  the  absolute,  as  these 
arguments  assume  it  to  be,  does  not  exist,  but  also  that  it  is  a 
mere  symbol  of  the  cessation  of  all  thought  and  intelligence. 

The  maxim  that  all  definition  limits  is  pertinent  to  a  log¬ 
ical  general  notion  or  a  mathematical  sum  total,  not  to  a  con¬ 
crete  being.  The  arguments  of  agnostics  are  conclusive  as  to 
the  false  ideas  of  the  absolute  which  they  hold,  but  have  no 
force  against  our  knowledge  of  the  real  absolute  or  uncon¬ 
ditioned  being,  whose  existence  the  universe  reveals  as  its  ulti¬ 
mate  ground.  The  more  powers  a  being  manifests,  the  more 
reality  of  being  it  reveals.  But  the  more  powers  it  reveals,  the 
more  determinate  it  is.  There  are  fewer  beings  like  it ;  fewer 


176 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


in  the  class  designated  by  the  general  name.  The  increased 
determinateness,  which  restricts  the  logical  general  notion  to 
fewer  beings,  greatens  the  beings.  And  when  we  come  to  the 
absolute  Being,  which  is  one  and  reveals  itself  in  all  the  powers 
of  the  universe,  it  is  the  Being  at  once  the  most  determinate 
and  the  greatest  of  all.  It  is  not  necessary  that  the  absolute  be 
everything  to  prevent  its  being  limited  by  that  which  it  is  not. 
The  existence  of  finite  beings  dependent  on  the  absolute  Being 
is  no  limitation  of  the  absolute.  On  the  contrary,  if  the  abso¬ 
lute  Being  could  not  manifest  itself  in  finite  beings  dependent  on 
itself,  that  inability  would  be  a  limitation  of  it. 

It  follows  from  what  has  been  said  that  this  agnosticism,  in 
denying  the  possibility  of  knowing  what  the  absolute  is,  involves 
the  denial  of  the  possibility  of  knowing  any  being.  If  thought 
vanishes  into  zero  at  the  absolute  it  is  impotent  to  give  real 
knowledge  either  of  the  absolute  or  of  the  finite.  If  there  is  no 
absolute  Being,  there  is  nothing  which  gives  reality,  power,  unity 
and  continuity  to  the  universe,  and  the  universe  itself  is  an  illu¬ 
sion,  an  endlessly  shifting  phantasmagoria  which  effects  nothing, 
means  nothing,  is  nothing.  Thus  this  agnosticism,  if  it  is  not 
allowed  to  contradict  and  nullify  itself  by  ascribing  power  and 
other  attributes  to  the  so-called  unknowable,  as  Mr.  Spencer 
does,  must  contradict  itself  and  nullify  all  knowledge  by  affirm¬ 
ing  the  existence  of  a  being  of  which  it  knows  nothing,  a 
continuous  revelation  of  that  being  which  reveals  nothing,  and 
the  existence  of  a  being  which  is  annulled  if  we  ascribe  to  it 
any  essential  quality  of  a  being.  Thus  this  partial  agnosticism 
by  logical  necessity  passes  over  into  a  complete  agnosticism  or 
universal  skepticism.  It  starts  with  assuming  that  rational  intu¬ 
ition  arises  merely  from  mental  impotence  ;  it  proceeds  to  the 
assumption  that  the  knowledge  of  the  absolute  is  merely  the 
negation  of  knowledge  ;  and  it  issues  in  the  necessity  of  infer¬ 
ring  mental  impotence  to  know  anything.  It  is  the  Nirvana  of 
the  intellect,  by  absorption  into  which  it  realizes  its  highest  pos¬ 
sibilities  by  the  cessation  of  all  thought  in  the  negative  knowl¬ 
edge  of  absolute  Being. 

Mr.  Huxley  boasts  that  he  “  invented  the  word  agnostic.” 
It  was  an  ill-omened  invention  ;  for  the  word  etymologically 
denotes  the  negation  of  all  knowledge,  and  is  synonymous  with 
universal  skepticism.  Perhaps  he  budded  better  than  he  knew  ; 
for  the  way  of  thinking  to  which  he  applied  this  name,  neces¬ 
sarily  involves  universal  skepticism  as  its  ultimate  logical  issue. 


THE  ABSOLUTE  BEING  AND  NON-THEISTIC  THEORIES.  17T 

Professor  Huxley,  in  bis  volume  on  Hume,  claims  bim  “as  the 
protagonist  of  that  more  modern  way  of  thinking  which  has  been 
called  agnosticism.”  He  seems  to  imagine  that  the  agnostics 
are  teaching  Hume’s  philosophy  and  may  avail  themselves  of  his 
arguments  in  affirming  the  knowledge  of  the  physical  world  and 
of  the  existence  of  the  absolute  Being,  while  denying  all  knowl¬ 
edge  of  what  that  being  is.  But  this  is  a  misapprehension. 
Hume’s  teaching  was  that  if  through  the  senses  we  know  only 
impressions,  then  the  ideas  of  the  mind  are  equally  destitute  of 
substantial  reality,  and  all  knowledge  disappears.  His  theory 
of  knowledge  coincides  with  the  complete  positivism  of  Comte 
rather  than  with  agnosticism  as  expounded  by  Mr.  Spencer. 
The  latter  in  his  exposition  of  agnosticism  —  though  in  his  other 
writings  often  inconsistent  with  it  —  gives  us  a  theory  of  positive 
knowledge  of  finite  beings,  and  of  the  absolute  Being  as  existing 
and  manifesting  itself  in  the  universe.  In  this  he  is  more  in 
harmony  with  theism  than  with  any  theory  of  phenomenalism. 
If  the  arguments  for  phenomenalism  are  also  arguments  for  mod¬ 
ern  agnosticism,  it  is  because  Hamilton,  Mansel  and  others,  and 
sometimes  Mr.  Spencer  himself,  assume  principles  which  logically 
lead  to  it. 

Mr.  Spencer’s  own  principle  that  the  absolute  is  omnipresent 
Power  manifesting  itself  in  the  universe  in  all  phenomena,  as 
well  as  his  habit  of  reasoning  from  facts,  should  have  led  him 
to  adopt  the  theistic  method,  and  study  what  the  absolute  is  by 
observing  what  it  has  manifested  or  revealed  of  itself  in  the 
universe.  So  far  as  he  has  failed  to  do  so  he  is  inconsistent  with 
himself.  But  in  this  principle  he  affirms  a  real  knowledge  of 
what  the  absolute  is,  declaring  that  it  is  omnipresent  Power. 
Thus  he  contradicts  his  agnosticism  and  takes  a  position  which 
fully  justifies  the  theist  in  his  further  conclusion  that  the  absolute 
is  the  absolute  omnipresent  Spirit  as  well  as  the  absolute  omni¬ 
present  Power.  While  Mr.  Spencer  approves  the  agnosticism  of 
Hamilton  and  Mansel  and  adopts  large  extracts  from  them  as 
expressing  his  own  views,  he  criticises  and  rejects  their  position 
that  we  have  only  a  negative  knowledge  of  the  absolute  Being  ; 
he  insists  that  the  knowledge  of  it  is  positive,  and  declares  in 
various  particulars  what  is  positively  known  of  it.  He  says,  in 
further  criticism  of  Hamilton’s  agnosticism :  “  If  the  non-relative 
or  absolute  is  present  in  thought  only  as  a  mere  negation,  then 
the  relation  between  it  and  the  relative  becomes  unthinkable. 
.  .  .  And  if  this  relation  is  unthinkable,  then  the  relative  itself 

12 


178  THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 

is  unthinkable,  for  want  of  its  antithesis  ;  whence  results  the  dis¬ 
appearance  of  all  thought  whatever.”  1 

The  possession  of  the  idea  of  the  absolute  is  in  itself  proof 
that  man  is  competent  to  know  what  the  absolute  is.  The  idea 
has  been  prominent  in  human  thought  ever  since  philosophy 
began.  No  mind  that  thinks  far  can  avoid  coming  in  sight  of  it. 
It  is  present  not  only  in  human  thought,  but  more  or  less  dis¬ 
tinctly  in  all  religions,  and  thus  has  been  a  powerful  factor  in 
human  history.  And  in  face  of  all  speculations  that  it  can  be 
known  only  negatively,  the  fact  is  that  it  has  been  held  as  a  dis¬ 
tinctively  positive  idea,  involved  in  the  idea  of  God.  I  do  not 
urge  this  here  as  proof  that  absolute  Being  exists,  for  this  the 
agnostic  affirms.  But  it  is  proof  that  if  it  exists  the  human  mind 
is  competent  to  know  positively,  though  not  completely,  what  it 
is.  If  it  does  not  thus  know  it,  it  must  be  because  the  absolute 
Being  has  not  revealed  itself  within  the  range  of  man’s  knowl¬ 
edge,  not  because  man  is  incompetent  to  know  it  if  revealed. 
And  if  the  finiteness  of  man  makes  it  impossible  for  him  to 
know  what  the  absolute  Being  is,  then  so  long  as  he  is  finite 
it  is  equally  impossible  for  any  revelation  to  introduce  into  that 
finite  mind  either  the  idea  of  the  absolute  Being  or  the  knowl¬ 
edge  of  its  existence.  Yet  these  agnostics,  while  holding  that 
man’s  finiteness  precludes  all  knowledge  of  what  the  absolute 
Being  is,  affirm  both  that  he  has  the  idea  of  it  and  the  knowl¬ 
edge  that  it  exists,  and  that  it  is  revealed  in  all  the  phenomena, 
powers  and  processes  of  the  universe. 

It  must  also  be  noticed  that  the  absolute,  the  existence  of 
which  is  declared  by  the  agnostics  to  be  known,  carries  in  it  the 
idea  of  being.  Existence  implies  a  being  that  exists.  The  power 
in  which  it  manifests  itself  cannot  be  separated  from  the  being ; 
it  is  the  phenomenon  in  which  the  being  appears.  Therefore 
the  assertion  of  the  existence  of  absolute  Being  carries  in  it  the 
assertion  of  positive  knowledge  of  what  the  absolute  Being  is. 
Being  implies  at  least  power  that  persists  in  unity  and  identity  ; 
so  much  of  positive  knowledge  of  the  absolute  Being  is  implied 
in  the  assertion  that  it  is  known  to  exist. 

These  agnostics  go  further  than  the  recognition  of  the  abso¬ 
lute  as  Being.  Hamilton,  while  declaring  that  we  have  no  posi¬ 
tive  knowledge  of  the  unconditioned,  proceeds  to  classify  it  as  a 
genus  having  two  species,  the  absolute  and  the  infinite.  He  also 
teaches  that  “  in  the  very  consciousness  of  our  inability  to  con- 

1  First  Principles,  §§  13,  20,  24,  26. 


THE  ABSOLUTE  BEING  AND  NON-THEISTIC  THEORIES.  179 

ceive  auglit  above  the  relative  and  the  finite,  we  are  inspired 
with  a  belief  in  the  existence  of  something  unconditioned.”  1 
This  unknowable  unconditioned  he  presents  as  the  object  of 
faith  and  of  religion.  Mr.  Mansel,  in  The  Limits  of  Religious 
Thought,  carried  out  Hamilton’s  conclusion  as  a  basis  of  reli¬ 
gious  belief  and  a  defense  of  Christian  faith  against  the  objec¬ 
tions  of  skeptics.  He  thus  exposed  himself  to  the  severe  but 
merited  rebuke  of  John  Stuart  Mill :  “  A  view  of  religion  which 
I  hold  to  be  profoundly  immoral  —  that  it  is  our  duty  to  worship 
a  being  whose  moral  attributes  are  affirmed  to  be  unknowable 
by  us  and  to  be  perhaps  extremely  different  from  those  which, 
whenever  speaking  of  our  fellow-creatures,  we  call  by  the  same 
name.”  “  If,  instead  of  the  glad  tidings  that  there  exists  a  Be¬ 
ing  in  whom  all  the  excellences  of  which  the  highest  human 
mind  can  conceive  exist  in  a  degree  inconceivable  to  us,  I  am  in¬ 
formed  that  the  world  is  ruled  by  a  Being  whose  attributes  are 
infinite,  but  what  they  are  we  cannot  learn,  nor  what  are  the 
principles  of  his  government,  except  that  ‘the  highest  human 
morality  which  we  are  capable  of  conceiving  ’  does  not  sanc¬ 
tion  them  ;  convince  me  of  it  and  I  will  bear  my  fate  as  I  may. 
But  when  I  am  told  that  I  must  believe  this  and  at  the  same 
time  call  this  Being  by  the  names  which  express  and  affirm  the 
highest  human  morality,  I  say  in  plain  terms  that  I  will  not. 
Whatever  power  such  a  Being  may  have  over  me,  there  is  one 
thing  which  he  shall  not  do :  he  shall  not  compel  me  to  worship 
him.”2 

Both  Hamilton  and  Mansel  fall  into  further  inconsistency  in 
affirming  that  in  the  future  life  men  will  know  God  ;  as  Ham¬ 
ilton  says,  “  without  limitation ;  ”  as  Mansel  says,  “  the  light 
which  now  gleams  in  restless  flashes  from  the  ruffled  waters 
of  the  human  soul  will  settle  into  the  steadfast  image  of  God’s 
face  shining  on  its  unbroken  surface.”  But  their  philosophy 
rests  on  the  supposition  that  the  finite  is  shut  out,  because  it  is 
finite,  from  knowing  what  the  infinite  or  unconditioned  is.  God 
then  must  continue  unknowable,  as  really  as  now,  in  the  future 
life  and  so  long  as  God  is  infinite  and  man  is  finite.  Here 
the  deeper  reason  breaks  through  their  subtle  logomachy  and 
unawares  they  take  a  position  inconsistent  with  their  philosophy 
and  implying  that  the  absolute  is  not  in  itself  unknowable  by  a 

1  Philosophy  of  the  Conditioned,  Wight’s  Hamilton,  p.  457. 

2  Mill’s  Autobiography,  p.  375.  Examination  of  Hamilton,  vol.  i.  pp. 
130,  131. 


180 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


finite  mind,  but  may  be  known  more  and  more  with  the  pro¬ 
gressive  development  of  the  mind.  In  fact  their  position  here 
seems  to  imply,  what  must  be  forever  impossible,  that  a  finite 
mind  in  the  life  after  death  may  comprehend  completely  what 
the  absolute  Being  is. 

Mr.  Fiske,  in  his  Cosmic  Philosophy,  says  of  the  absolute : 
u  There  exists  a  POWER  to  which  no  limit  in  time  or  space  is 
conceivable,  of  which  all  phenomena,  as  presented  in  conscious¬ 
ness,  are  manifestations,  but  which  we  can  only  know  through 
these  manifestations.”  This  doctrine  he  calls u  Cosmic  Theism.” 
In  a  more  recent  volume  he  says :  “  The  term  Unknowable  I 
have  carefully  refrained  from  using.”  In  presenting  his  view 
of  the  absolute  he  says  that  it  is  not  sufficient  to  regard  it  as 
physical  power,  but  we  must  also  recognize  it  as  psychical  ;  that 
an  anthropomorphic  element  is  indispensable  ;  that  “  the  total 
elimination  of  anthropomorphism  from  the  idea  of  God  abol¬ 
ishes  the  idea  itself ;  ”  that  a  teleology  must  be  recognized  in 
the  universe ;  that  “  the  glorious  consummation  toward  which 
organic  evolution  is  tending  is  the  production  of  the  highest 
and  most  perfect  psychical  life  ;  ”  and  that  “  always  bearing  in 
mind  the  symbolic  character  of  the  words,  we  may  say  that  God 
is  Spirit.”  1 

Mr.  Spencer  has  been  emphatic  in  affirming  that  the  Absolute 
is  the  Unknowable,  and  that  the  question  what  it  is  cannot  be 
answered ;  it  is,  as  Mr.  Harrison  put  it,  “  an  ever  present  conun¬ 
drum  to  be  everlastingly  given  up.”  But  in  evident  inconsistency 
with  this,  he  has  always  declared  the  absolute  Unknowable  to  be 
omnipresent  Power,  manifesting  itself  in  all  the  phenomena  of 
the  universe.  In  a  recent  article  in  reply  to  a  criticism  by  Mr. 
Harrison,  he  has  expressed  himself  anew  with  great  explicitness.2 
He  cites  passages  from  his  published  works  in  which  he  main¬ 
tains  against  Hamilton  and  Mansel  that  “  our  consciousness  of 
the  absolute  is  not  negative  but  positive,  and  is  the  one  inde¬ 
structible  element  of  consciousness  4  which  persists  at  all  times, 
under  all  circumstances,  and  cannot  cease  until  consciousness 
ceases.’  ”  He  cites  passages  in  which  he  has  refused  to  accept 
the  Comtian  positivism,  “  and  in  the  most  emphatic  way  declined 
thus  to  commit  intellectual  suicide ;  ”  and,  in  opposition  to  Comte, 
he  adds,  “  So  far  from  regarding  that  which  transcends  phenom- 

1  The  Idea  of  God,  pp.  xvii.,  xxv. ,  135,  138,  160,  111-116.  See  also  The 
Destiny  of  Man. 

2  Retrogressive  Religion,  Nineteenth  Century,  July,  1884. 


THE  ABSOLUTE  BEING  AND  NON-THEISTIC  THEORIES.  181 


ena  as  ‘  The  All-Nothingness,’  T  regard  it  as  the  All-Being.”  He 
defends  his  definition  of  the  Unknowable,  as  “  an  Infinite  and 
Eternal  Energy  from  which  all  things  proceed  ;  ”  and  says  that 
he  originally  wijpte,  44  an  Infinite  and  Eternal  Energy  by  which 
all  things  are  created  and  sustained ;  ”  and  that  though,  to  pre¬ 
vent  misunderstanding,  he  changed  the  last  clause  in  correcting 
the  proof,  “  the  words  did  not  express  more  than  I  meant.”  Mr. 
Spencer  says  :  “  The  final  outcome  of  that  speculation  commenced 
by  the  primitive  man  is  that  the  Power  manifested  throughout 
the  Universe  distinguished  as  material  is  the  same  power  which 
in  ourselves  wells  up  in  the  form  of  consciousness.  .  .  .  This 
necessity  we  are  under,  to  think  of  external  energy  in  terms  of 
the  internal  energy,  gives  rather  a  spiritualistic  than  a  material¬ 
istic  aspect  to  the  Universe.” 

Mr.  Spencer  avows  that  he  has  positive  knowledge  of  the 
absolute,  that  he  knows  it  as  Being,  and  as  a  Power  ever  present 
and  ever  manifested  in  the  universe,  both  in  nature  and  in  the 
form  of  consciousness.  He  might  legitimately  go  much  farther  ; 
with  logical  consistency  he  might  be  a  theist  rather  than  an 
agnostic.  A  cause  or  power  manifested  in  its  action  and  effects 
cannot  be  unknown.  In  whatever  particulars  we  may  be  ignorant 
of  what  it  is,  we  must  at  least  know  what  it  manifests  in  the 
specific  actions  and  effects.  And  if  the  absolute  is  an  ever  pres¬ 
ent  Being  manifesting  its  power  in  the  universe,  it  must  be  a 
cause  adequate  to  the  effects  produced,  and  thus  must  be  contin¬ 
uously  revealing  what  it  is.  Instead  of  stopping  in  agnosticism, 
Mr.  Spencer  might  with  more  logical  consistency  unite  with  the 
theist  in  his  adoring  exclamation:  “The  heavens  declare  the  glory 
of  God,  and  the  firmament  showeth  the  work  of  his  hands.” 

The  theist  holds  that  man’s  knowledge  of  the  absolute  Being 
is  always  inadequate.  But  studying  the  constitution  and  course 
of  nature  and  the  constitution  and  history  of  man,  he  finds  the 
absolute  Being  revealed  as  the  absolute  Spirit,  the  God  of  wisdom 
and  love.  And  in  this  way  we  may  find  a  true  meaning  even  in 
Cousin’s  position,  that  the  absolute  is  cognizable  and  conceiva¬ 
ble  by  consciousness  and  reflection  under  relation,  difference  and 
plurality  ;  that  is,  that  it  may  be  apprehended  in  thought,  dis¬ 
tinguished  from  the  universe  and  known  in  unity  with  the  uni¬ 
verse,  constituting  it  a  dynamic,  rational  and  moral  system. 

The  conclusion  is  obvious.  The  absolute  Being  is  not  unknow¬ 
able  in  itself.  There  are  no  reasonable  grounds  for  any  agnosti¬ 
cism  other  than  this,  that  man,  knowing  that  the  absolute  Being 


182 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


exists,  has  also  a  real  knowledge  of  what  it  is,  a  knowledge  which 
may  be  forever  progressive  but  must  be  forever  incomplete.  This 
theism  always  recognizes  and  the  Christian  Scriptures  sublimely 
declare.  God  is  known,  the  absolute  Spirit,  perfect  in  wisdom 
and  love,  yet  always  transcending  us.  “  Clouds  and  darkness 
are  round  about  him  ;  righteousness  and  judgment  are  the  foun¬ 
dation  of  his  throne.  Mercy  and  truth  go  before  his  face.  Mercy 
and  truth  are  met  together  ;  righteousness  and  peace  have  kissed 
each  other.”  (Psalms  xcvii.  2,  lxxxix.  14,  lxxxv.  10.) 

III.  Pantheism.  —  The  refutation  of  pantheism,  as  of  all 
forms  of  atheism,  is  found  in  the  positive  evidence  of  the  existence 
of  God,  which  will  be  considered  hereafter.  A  full  examination 
of  pantheism  within  the  limits  of  this  chapter  is  impossible  and 
will  not  be  attempted. 

1.  Pantheism  is  the  theory  that  the  absolute  is  the  one  and 
only  substance,  never  as  transitive  cause  creating  or  causing  any 
effect,  but  within  itself  evolving  and  evolved,  and  without  con¬ 
sciousness  or  personality. 

Other  names  of  the  absolute  have  been  substituted  for  sub¬ 
stance,  and  thus  pantheism  appears  in  different  forms.  But  in 
all  its  forms  it  is  unchanged  in  its  essential  principles  and  the 
argument  is  essentially  the  same. 

Spinoza  recognizes  as  underlying  the  universe  but  one  nou- 
menon  or  thing  in  itself,  the  one  only  substance,  the  same  in  all 
phenomena  ;  of  this,  thought  and  extension  are  the  attributes, 
and  all  finite  beings  are  the  modes  in  which  that  one  substance 
exists  and  is  manifested.  And  this  is  what  constitutes  the  re- 
ality  of  the  universe. 

“  No  essence  into  nought  resolveth ; 

The  Eternal  through  all  forms  revolveth  ; 

In  Being  hold  thyself  well  blessed. 

For  Being  is  eternal;  deep 

And  everlasting  laws  do  keep 

The  treasures  whence  the  All  comes  dressed.”  —  Goethe. 

In  pantheism  the  transitive  cause  is  not  recognized.  The  one 
Being  can  cause  no  effect  ad  extra.  Nothing  has  been  created, 
nothing  has  been  caused.  The  action  of  the  universe  is  a  per¬ 
petual  evolving  of  the  absolute  substance  into  its  various  modes 
of  existence,  but  never  exerting  any  power  or  producing  any 
effect  beyond  itself.  It  is  an  eternal  and  absolute  evolving  or 
becoming.  But  its  efficiency  is  always  immanent,  never  tran¬ 
sitive. 


THE  ABSOLUTE  BEING  AND  NON-THEISTIC  THEORIES.  183 


“  To  recreate  the  old  creation, 

All  things  work  on  in  fast  rotation, 

Lest  aught  grow  fixed  and  change  resist; 

And  what  was  not  shall  spring  to  birth, 

As  purest  sun  or  painted  earth  — 

God’s  universe  can  know  no  rest. 

It  must  go  on  creating,  changing, 

Through  endless  shapes  forever  ranging, 

And  rest  we  only  seem  to  see. 

The  Eternal  lives  through  all  revolving ; 

For  all  must  ever  keep  dissolving 

Would  it  continue  still  to  be.”  —  Goethe,  Eins  und  AlUs. 

Accordingly  Spinoza  teaches  that  the  universe  evolving  and 
the  universe  evolved  in  identity  is  God.  “  Natura  naturans  et 
natura  naturata  in  identitate  est  Deus.”  And  these  cannot  be 
separated.  As  a  quality  is  nothing  apart  from  the  substance  of 
which  it  is  a  quality,  the  universe  is  nothing  apart  from  the  abso¬ 
lute  Being  which  is  its  substance.  The  same  is  true  of  all  things 
in  the  universe.  Spinoza  says  :  44  Individual  things  are  nothing 
more  than  affections  of  the  attributes  of  God  or  modes  by  which 
the  attributes  of  God  are  expressed  in  certain  determinate  man¬ 
ners.”  1  Finite  things  are  not  real  beings.  They  are  merely 
modes  into  which  the  absolute  evolves  and  in  which  for  the  time 
being  it  is  revealed.  So  soon  as  the  absolute  Being  evolves  into 
another  mode,  the  finite  person  or  thing  ceases  to  be,  as  a  shadow 
ceases  to  be  when  the  body  which  cast  it  is  no  more.  On  the 
other  hand  the  absolute,  apart  from  its  manifestation  in  the  uni¬ 
verse,  is,  like  a  substance  without  qualities,  entirely  indetermi¬ 
nate,  a  mere  zero.  It  is  only  in  and  through  the  universe  that 
God  is.2 

Hence  pantheists  properly  insist  that  they  are  misrepresented 
when  they  are  charged  with  teaching  that  everything  is  God. 
Everything  and  even  the  phenomenal  universe  itself  apart  from 
the  one  only  substance  that  is  evolving,  is  not  God ;  it  is  not 
anything.  The  whole  only  is  God,  and  it  is  the  only  being.  So 
the  Indian  Brahmans  argue  :  44  The  Ganges  is  navigable  by  ships  ; 
but  a  portion  of  Ganges  water  in  a  wash-basin  is  not  navigable 
by  ships.” 

This  world-process,  this  evolving  of  the  one  only  substance 
into  its  various  modes,  goes  on  in  impersonality  and  entire  uncon- 

1  Ethics,  part  i.,  Corollary  to  Prop.  xxv. 

2  “  Est-ne  Dei  sedes  nisi  terra  et  pontus  et  aer 

Et  coelum  et  virtus  ?  Superos  quid  qua3rimus  ultra  ? 

Jupiter  est  quodcunque  vides,  quocunque  moveris.” 


184 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


sciousness.  Spinoza  ascribes  to  the  one  substance  the  two  attri¬ 
butes  of  thought  and  extension.  But  he  takes  pains  to  tell  us 
and  to  repeat  the  saying,  that  the  thought  or  intelligence  of  God 
has  no  more  in  common  with  human  intelligence,  than  the  celes¬ 
tial  constellation,  the  Dog,  has  in  common  with  a  barking  dog 
on  earth,  and  perhaps  even  much  less.1  In  the  entire  evolution 
there  is  neither  conscious  intelligence  nor  will.  Intelligence  may 
be  ascribed  to  the  absolute  in  this  process,  as  it  is  ascribed  to 
a  circle  or  a  steam-engine;  it  evinces  intelligence,  but  it  is  not 
itself  intelligent.  In  the  world-process  the  absolute  comes  to 
conscious  intelligence  first  in  man.  So  Schelling  says  :  “  Nature 
sleeps  in  the  plant,  dreams  in  the  animal,  awakes  in  man.”  The 
pantheistic  absolute,  therefore,  is  a  substance  wholly  indetermi¬ 
nate,  a  zero  to  the  thought.  It  is  eternally  circling  within  it¬ 
self  and  evolving  into  the  universe,  without  consciousness,  with¬ 
out  plan  or  purpose  or  freedom,  without  causal  efficiency  or  tran¬ 
sitive  power. 

2.  Pantheism  rests  on  no  reasonable  grounds  and  the  arguments 
in  support  of  it  are  invalid. 

First,  it  rests  on  a  false  theory  of  knowledge.  It  assumes  that 
knowledge  begins  as  the  knowledge  of  the  universal,  not  of  the 
particular.  And  because  it  assumes  that  the  absolute  is  the  one 
only  being,  it  necessarily  denies  the  real  being  of  finite  persons 
and  things.  Thus  it  contradicts  the  fundamental  fact  that  hu¬ 
man  knowledge  begins  as  the  knowledge  of  self  and  of  an  outward 
object  presented  in  consciousness  and  perceived  in  one  and  the 
same  mental  action,  and  thus  is  in  its  beginning  the  knowledge 
of  being.  Herein  pantheism  also  contradicts  all  human  conscious¬ 
ness.  The  concrete,  determinate,  individual  being  is  the  ulti¬ 
mate  unit  of  all  thought ;  as  such  it  is  present  in  all  knowledge, 
is  implied  in  all  laws  of  thought  and  all  ideas  of  reason,  and  is 
essential  in  all  reality.  It  is  known  immediately  in  the  knowl¬ 
edge  of  self  and  is  necessarily  postulated  in  the  knowledge  of 
bodies,  as  the  atom,  molecule,  or  the  ultimate  unit  of  matter  by 
whatever  name  it  may  be  called. 

Pantheism  is  thus  in  direct  contradiction  to  science,  which  be¬ 
gins  with  observing  particulars,  ascertains  their  real  relations  and 
unities,  and  thus  proceeds  to  the  general  and  universal  as  con¬ 
crete  systems  of  real  beings  in  the  unity  of  dynamic  and  rational 
relations.  Pantheism,  on  the  contrary,  beginning  with  the  uni¬ 
versal,  finds  the  unity  of  all  things  in  the  absolute  and  only  One, 

1  Cogitata  Mctapliysica,  part  ii.  §  3.  Ethics,  part  i.,  Prop.  xvii.  Scholium. 


THE  ABSOLUTE  BEING  AND  NON-THEISTIC  THEORIES.  185 


of  whose  existence  finite  beings  are  but  modes.  It  finds  the  unity 
of  the  universe  only  by  the  crude  and  clumsy  expedient  of  iden¬ 
tifying  the  absolute  and  the  finite,  the  All  and  the  One.  The 
roots  of  pantheism  in  all  its  forms  are  cut  through  by  every  sci¬ 
ence  which  recognizes  men  as  personal  beings  in  a  moral  system, 
or  atoms  or  any  ultimate  units  of  matter  in  a  physical  system,  or 
which  discovers  many  beings  in  any  system  in  unity  through  dy¬ 
namic  and  rational  relations. 

A  necessary  logical  inference  from  pantheism  is  that  real 
knowledge  is  impossible  to  man.  The  knowledge  of  being  begins 
in  the  knowledge  of  self  in  the  perception  of  an  outward  reality. 
Beginning  thus,  it  is  the  knowledge  of  being  through  all  its  pro¬ 
cesses  and  progress.  But  if,  as  pantheism  teaches,  the  knowledge 
of  self,  and  of  external  things  in  which  knowledge  begins,  is  un¬ 
real  and  illusive,  then  knowledge  in  all  its  processes  and  progress 
is  equally  unreal  and  illusive,  and  universal  skepticism  is  the 
necessary  issue. 

""Thug' "pantheism  rests  on  a  totally  false  theory  of  human  knowl¬ 
edge.  It  is  in  direct  contradiction  to  physical  science  and  to  the 
natural  realism  on  which  it  rests ;  and  also  to  the  rational  real¬ 
ism  which  explains  and  justifies  the  reality  of  human  knowledge 
and  is  the  basis  of  all  sound  philosophy.  Extremes  meet.  Pan¬ 
theism,  which  at  the  outset  seems  at  the  farthest  remove  from 
positivism  and  all  phenomenalism,  is,  through  its  own  essential 
errors,  brought  round  by  logical  necessity  to  identity  with  them. 

A  second  criticism  is  that  pantheism  assumes  a  purely  a  priori 
idea  of  what  the  absolute  is,  and  its  argument  is  only  an  analysis  ! 
or  unfolding  of  the  contents  of  that  idea,  or  inferences  from  what  \ 
is  implied  in  it.  That  the  absolute  Being  exists  as  the  ultimate 
ground  of  the  universe  and  is  manifested  in  it,  is  a  self-evident 
and  ultimate  law  of  thought.  What  it  is  can  be  known  only  by 
studying  its  self-revelation  in  the  universe.  The  pantheist,  on 
the  contrary,  creates  a  priori  an  idea  of  what  the  absolute  is.  Ini 
his  argument  he  merely  takes  out  what  he  himself  had  put  in.  \ 
The  different  forms  of  pantheism  are  characterized  by  different 
ideas  of  the  absolute  ;  but  in  all  it  is  open  to  this  criticism. 

Spinoza,  for  example,  assumes  that  the  absolute  Being  is  the 
one  only  Substance.  He  says  :  “  By  substance  I  mean  that  which 
is  in  itself  and  is  conceived  per  se ;  that  is,  the  conception  of 
which  does  not  require  the  conception  of  anything  else  antece¬ 
dent  to  it.’’ 1  Here  he  defines  substance  as  the  absolute  Being. 

1  Ethics,  part  i.,  Definition  3. 


186 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


His  argument  becomes  a  mere  begging  of  the  question.  Having 
defined  substance  as  the  absolute  Being,  he  proceeds  to  argue  that 
the  absolute  Being  is  the  one  only  substance. 

Pantheism  assumes  that  the  absolute  is  the  one  only  being  and 
there  can  be  no  other.  This  contradicts  all  human  consciousness. 
It  has  no  warrant  in  reason. h  The  existence  of  one  being  is  no 
contradiction  to  the  existence  of  another ./  For  what  reason  does 
the  pantheist  affirm  that  there  can  be  no  other  ?  He  includes 
self-existence  in  his  definition  of  a  being.  Then  he  presents  his 
definition  in  the  form  of  an  inference  and  affirms  that  only  one 
being  can  exist  and  there  cannot  be  another.  He  argues,  further, 
that  there  can  be  but  one  being,  because,  if  there  were  two  coex¬ 
istent  beings,  they  could  not  act  on  each  other  ;  each  would  be 
shut  up  within  its  own  separate  being  and  could  not  act  on  the 
other  nor  in  any  way  come  into  communication  with  it.  Here 
again  pantheism  contradicts  the  common  consciousness  of  man¬ 
kind  as  well  as  all  science  ;  for  both  affirm  the  knowledge  of  be¬ 
ings  coexisting  and  interacting.  The  pantheist  is  driven  to  this 
contradiction  only  by  his  own  preconceived  definition  of  being. 

Spinoza  argues  from  the  maxim  that  if  things  have  nothing  in 
common,  one  of  them  cannot  exert  any  causal  energy  on  the 
other.1  From  this  it  is  inferred  that,  because  the  absolute  or  in¬ 
finite  and  the  finite  have  nothing  in  common,  neither  can  act  on 
the  other.  The  maxim  is  true  and  important  in  its  legitimate 
application.  Motor-force  in  the  cause  must  be  motor-force  in  the 
effect ;  it  cannot  be  transformed  into  thought ;  thought  cannot 
lift  weights  nor  be  measured  by  foot-pounds  ;  likeness  of  rational 
constitution  is  necessary  to  rational  intercommunication.  But  in 
these  cases  the  unlikeness  is  of  positive  power  and  quality,  not  a 
mere  inequality  of  quantity.  But  the  unlikeness  of  the  infinite 
and  the  finite  is  rather  an  inequality  of  quantity  than  an  unlike¬ 
ness  of  positive  quality  or  power.  Man  as  a  rational,  free,  moral 
being  is  like  God  in  positive  powers  and  qualities,  however  de¬ 
pendent  on  God  or  inferior  by  limitation  in  time  and  space,  and 
in  quantity  or  degree  of  intelligence  and  power.  The  inference 
that  this  is  impossible  is  drawn  only  from  some  a  priori  and  false 
idea  of  the  absolute  Being. 

A  third  criticism  is  that,  in  developing  his  a  priori  idea  of  the 
absolute,  the  pantheist’s  argument  is  commonly  vitiated  by  sub¬ 
stituting  logical  general  notions  for  actual  beings  and  logical  pro¬ 
cesses  of  thought  for  the  dynamic  energies  and  orderly  processes 

1  Ethics,  part  i.,  Prop.  iii. 


THE  ABSOLUTE  BEING  AND  NON-THEISTIC  THEORIES.  187 


of  tlie  universe.  Hence  the  reasoning  assumes  as  a  maxim  that 
all  definition  or  determinateness  limits.  For  this,  as  we  have 
seen,  is  true  of  mathematical  totals  and  of  logical  general  notions, 
but  not  of  real  beings.  On  the  contrary  the  more  determinate  f 
and  definite  a  being  is  by  multiplied  powers  and  increased  com-  j 
plexity  of  constitution,  the  higher  it  is  in  the  order  of  being,  \ 
The  determinateness  does  not  limit  the  being,  but  makes  it 
greater.  N 

Sometimes  the  pantheistic  idea  of  the  absolute  is  that  of  a 
mathematical  total  of  all  things.  Oftener  the  absolute  is  thought 
as  the  largest  logical  general  notion,  and  therefore  indeterminate. 

This  fallacy  is  exemplified  in  the  thinking  of  Hartmann  ;  he 
says  that  God  is  not  identical  with  every  individual  thing,  as  the 
individual  sheep  is  not  the  flock ;  still  the  universe  as  a  whole  is 
God.  As  the  flock  is  nothing  without  the  sheep,  so  God  is  noth¬ 
ing  without  the  world.  That  is,  God  sustains  the  same  relation 
to  the  world  that  the  idea  of  the  flock  sustains  to  the  individual 
sheep.  Others,  describing  the  relation  of  God  to  the  world,  have 
said,  as  the  general  notion,  tree,  is  nothing  for  itself,  but  has 
reality  only  in  the  individual  trees,  so  God  has  being  only  in  the 
world,  and  is  existent  only  as  the  world.1  Plainly  here  God  is 
to  the  world  only  what  a  logical  general  notion  is  to  the  indi¬ 
viduals  included  under  it.  Pantheists  appeal  to  the  fact  that 
the  mind  necessarily  seeks  the  unity  of  the  manifold ;  this  they 
exemplify  in  the  tendency  to  logical  generalization,  in  which 
individuals  are  thought  in  a  general  notion  under  a  common 
name.  Man,  they  say,  can  never  be  satisfied  in  his  thinking 
till  for  all  thought  a  highest  unity  is  found,  which  is  the  most 
general  idea  and  includes  all  individuals.  Thought  as  thus  built 
up  to  unity  in  a  general  idea  they  sometimes  compare  to  a  pyra¬ 
mid,  the  common  idea,  which  includes  all  the  individuals  in  a 
unity,  being  the  apex.  And  the  All  in  this  unity  of  the  ultimate 
general  notion  is  the  All  in  One,  or  the  absolute  Being.  The 
same  is  exemplified  in  Hegel’s  Universal.  II  This  is  not  a  resting- 
place  for  thought,  satisfied  in  finding  the  solution  of  the  ultimate 
problem  of  reason,  but  a  cessation  of  thought  through  its  impo¬ 
tence  to  generalize  any  further  ;  its  necessary  problem  as  to  the 
reality  and  unity  of  the  universe  remains  unsolved,  thought  is 
balked  rather  than  satisfied  and  continues  restless  in  a  fruitless 
activity,  finding  no  final  explanation  of  anything.  But  the 
necessary  problem  of  reason  is  solved  in  the  unity  of  the  universe 
1  Fliigel,  Die  Spekulative  Theologie  der  Gegenwart,  pp.  60,  120. 


188 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


as  a  concrete  system  dependent  on  God,  the  absolute  Reason, 
progressively  realizing  the  truths,  laws,  ideals  and  ends  of  his 
perfect  wisdom  and  love.  Thought  cannot  penetrate  behind  the 
absolute  Reason  and  comprehend  it.  Yet  in  its  light  human 
reason  finds  the  solution  of  its  ultimate  and  necessary  problems, 
and  is  enabled  to  make  continual  advance  in  the  knowledge  of 
God,  and  of  the  universe  in  its  relations  to  him.  Though  God 
is  the  greatest  of  mysteries,  he  is  the  solution  of  all.  The  dark¬ 
ness  and  clouds  which  are  round  about  him  are  gathered  from 
the  face  of  the  universe,  leaving  it  in  light.  If  God  is  lost  to 
thought,  the  mystery  that  had  enshrouded  him  spreads  over  all 
things,  and  again  to  human  view  the  universe  is  chaos,  and  dark¬ 
ness  is  on  the  face  of  the  deep. 

;  Thus  pantheistic  reasoning  is  little  more  than  an  analysis  and 
distribution  of  the  contents  of  a  general  notion  already  formed. 
To  it  is  applicable  the  sneer  sometimes  applied  to  all  philosophr 
ical  reasoning,  that  it  only  takes  out  what  it  had  first  put  in. 
With  whatever  satisfaction  the  conclusion  is  reached,  it  is  like 
the  gusto  with  which  one  relishes  the  stuffing  of  a  roasted  fowl ; 
he  has  only  taken  out  what  he  had  previously  put  in.1  Some¬ 
times  the  reasoning  implies  that  the  universal  has  caused  or  pro¬ 
duced  the  particular,  the  genus  the  species,  and  the  species  the 
individual.  Accordingly  we  find  writers  arguing  against  pan¬ 
theism  that  the  universal  cannot  be  the  cause  of  the  particular, 
the  genus  of  the  species,  the  tree  of  the  birch,  beech  and  linden, 
because  the  distinctive  qualities  of  the  species  are  not  contained 
in  the  genus.  And  these  writers  themselves  seem  entirely  un¬ 
aware  that  the  real  fallacy  is  the  substitution  of  a  logical,  general 
notion  for  God. 

3.  Pantheism  involves  contradictions.  Contradiction  is  often 
involved  in  its  assumed  idea  of  what  the  absolute  is.  It  is 
thought  without  a  thinker ;  an  Ego  or  Reason  or  Spirit  without 
consciousness  or  personality  ;  being  identical  with  nothing  ;  pure 
action  with  no  being  that  acts. 

Contradiction  is  involved  in  its  maxims.  r/it  cannot  be  the  sub¬ 
ject  of  any  attribute  ;  for  to  attribute  to  it  any  quality  or  power 
would  define  and  limit  it.  p*  cannot  be  a  cause,  because  that 
would  distinguish  it  from  the  effect;  it  cannot  create  a  finite 
being  and  thus  reveal  itself  in  a  finite  universe  of  real  beings, 


i 


Ein  philosophischer  Begriff  gebratener  Gans  entspricht; 

Dass  sie  von  selber  Aepfel  trass’,  gesehen  hab’  ich’s  nicht. 

Doch  ieder  freut  des  Inhalts  sich,  wenn  man  sie  bringt  zum  Schmaus; 
Das,  was  man  hat  hineingethan,  nimmt  wieder  man  heraus.” 


THE  ABSOLUTE  BEING  AND  NON-THEISTIC  THEORIES.  189 


physical  and  spiritual,  because  it  would  be  limited  by  the  exist¬ 
ence  of  any  being  other  than  itself.  But  in  thus  guarding  the 
absolute,  the  pantheist  limits  it ;  the  absolute  is  shut  up  within 
itself  and  cannot  cause  any  effect  external  to  itself.  Should  it 
cause  the  least  effect  external  to  itself,  should  it  give  being  to  a 
single  grain  of  sand  or  a  single  rational  person,  it  would  annul 
its  own  absoluteness,  it  would  destroy  itself. 

Another  contradiction  in  pantheism  is  that  it  affirms  that  the 
same  being  is  at  once  absolute  and  finite,  unconditioned  and  con¬ 
ditioned.  But  this  is  unthinkable.  ^/The  actual  issue  is  that, 
while  the  pantheist  speaks  of  the  two  as  really  one,  he  has  to  de¬ 
termine  which  of  the  two  is  the  one.  y  He  may  think  of  the  Ab¬ 
solute  as  the  One  that  is  the  All.  Or  the  universe  may  be  re¬ 
garded  as  the  All  that  is  the  One.  In  the  latter  case,  the  One 
of  Parmenides  and  the  Eleatics,  fixed  and  unchanging  through 
all  changes,  is  found  to  resolve  itself  into  the  never-ceasing  flux 
of  Heraclitus  ;  the  doctrine  that  something  eternal  stands  resolves 
itself  into  the  doctrine  that  everything  flows.  Some  pantheists 
even  affirm  an  absolute  becoming  ( das  absolut  Werden ).  But 
an  absolute  becoming  is  precisely  the  ceaseless  flux  of  Heraclitus, 
in  which  nothing  persists  and  therefore  nothing  subsists.  The 
absolute  itself  as  the  absolute  becoming,  is  not  the  eternal  Being, 
but  the  eternally  transient  and  phenomenal ;  and  this  is  unthink¬ 
able  and  absurd. 

A  further  contradiction  arises  in  the  attempt  to  think  tlje  pan¬ 
theistic  evolution  of  the  absolute  into  the  universe.  /  If  the 
absolute  is  perfect,  then  the  evolution  is  of  the  perfect  into  the 
imperfect.  According  to  Spinoza’s  pantheism,  if  the  absolute  is 
the  one  oiily  substance,  then  as  substance  it  is  wholly  indeter¬ 
minate.  Then  by  evolution  into  the  finite  it  becomes  determi¬ 
nate  and  therefore,  as  the  pantheist  always  assumes,  imperfect. 
This  is  what  is  sometimes  called  u  the  fall  of  the  absolute,”  If, 
on  the  other  hand,  determinateness  is  a  perfection  and  the  evolu¬ 
tion,  which  at  last  reaches  conscious  intelligence  and  freedom,  is 
a  progressive  realization  of  the  higher  and  the  better,  then  the 
primitive  substance  was  imperfect  and  is  being  gradually  devel¬ 
oped  to  perfection.  This  latter  is  the  type  of  German  panthe¬ 
ism.  Its  God  is  at  the  end  of  the  process  not  at  its  beginning. 
The  absolute  comes  to  consciousness  in  man  ;  man  is  the  highest 
being  in  the  universe.  The  philosopher  who  is  expounding  pan¬ 
theism  is  a  person  conscious  and  intelligent;  the  absolute  Being 
is  not.  The  finite  then  is  of  a  higher  order  and  nearer  to  perfec¬ 
tion  than  the  absolute. 


) 

S 

L 


190 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


Spinoza  says  that  the  absolute  without  attributes  would  be  en¬ 
tirely  indeterminate  ;  he  therefore  ascribes  to  it  the  two  attributes 
of  extension  and  thought.  But  this  only  reveals  the  contradic¬ 
tion  in  a  new  form.  He  affirms  that  extension  is  an  attribute  of 
God,  yet  God  is  incorporeal ;  and  thought  is  an  attribute  of  God, 
yet  God  is  not  an  intelligent  being,  not  a  rational  personal  Spirit. 
Moreover  bodies  are  said  to  be  modes  of  extension,  while  exten¬ 
sion  has  no  significance  except  as  a  property  of  a  body ;  and 
thought  is  an  attribute  of  God,  yet  it  has  no  likeness  to  anything 
,  which  we  know  as  thought  and  is  therefore  a  mere  zero.  Then 
God’s  two  attributes  are  extension  which  makes  him  limited  in 
space,  and  a  zero.  All  then  which  we  know  of  God  is  that  he  is 
extended  in  space. 

Pantheism,  therefore,  issues  in  complete  agnosticism ;  as  we 
push  out  upon  the  vast  and  misty  wild  we  find  ourselves  driven 
up  and  down  in 


“  a  dark 

Illimitable  ocean,  without  bound, 

Without  dimension,  where  length,  breadth  and  height, 
And  time  and  place  are  lost.” 


4.  As  a  theory  of  the  universe,  pantheism  proves  itself  inade¬ 
quate  to  account  for  it  or  to  solve  the  necessary  problems  of  rea¬ 
son  arising  in  the  investigation  of  it. 

Pantheism  not  only  assumes  an  a  priori  idea  of  the  absolute, 
but  the  idea  thus  assumed  is  false.  It  is  either  substance  alone, 
leaving  out  both  causal  energy  and  rational  personality ;  or  it  is 
an  idea  alone,  an  unconscious  abstraction  of  thought,  without  sub¬ 
stance,  or  causal  energy,  or  personal  reason. 

Recourse  is  had  to  pantheism  to  escape  certain  metaphysical 
difficulties  in  conceiving  the  creation  of  the  universe.  True  phi¬ 
losophy  however  accepts  the  fact  that  a  finite  mind  can  never 
conceive  or  picture  the  mode  in  which  God  creates.  To  create  is 
the  prerogative  of  God  alone.  Finite  beings  can  never  know  it  in 
experience.  Theism  accepts  this  limitation  of  human  knowledge. 
It  accepts  the  fact  that  the  universe  is  always  dependent  for  its 
being  on  the  absolute  Being,  that  transcends  it  and  yet  always 
manifests  itself  in  it.  It  accepts  the  transcendence  and  the  im¬ 
manence  of  the  absolute  as  facts  fully  substantiated  to  the  rea¬ 
son,  though  the  mode  of  the  creation  cannot  be  conceived  or 
pictured  by  a  finite  mind. 

Pantheism  does  not  explain  or  remove  any  of  these  difficulties. 
It  arbitrarily  denies  the  fact  of  creation  and  the  reality  of  any 


THE  ABSOLUTE  BEING  AND  NON-THEISTIC  THEORIES,  191 


transitive  cause ;  that  Is,  of  any  causal  efficiency  producing  effects 
external  to  the  being  exerting  it.  It  denies  both  the  transcend¬ 
ence  and  the  immanence  of  the  absolute  by  asserting  its  identity 
with  the  universe.  It  does  not  solve  the  problem  ;  it  simply  sets 
it  aside  by  an  arbitrary  assertion  of  identity.  And  when  it  has 
done  this,  all  the  old  difficulties  remain  and,  as  already  shown, 
new  difficulties  and  contradictions  are  created. 

If  now  we  consider  pantheism  as  a  theory  of  the  existing  uni¬ 
verse,  we  find  it  entirely  inadequate.  The  bare  idea  of  substance 
starts  the  mind  on  no  regress  to  find  a  beginning,  arouses  it  to  no 
question  as  to  the  origin  of  things.  An  atom  in  solid  singleness, 
as  Lucretius  conceived  it,  when  considered  by  itself,  suggests  no  be¬ 
ginning  or  change  and  demands  no  cause.  In  this  idea  of  it  there 
is  suggested  no  impossibility  of  its  having  existed  forever.  Hence 
the  pantheist  rests  on  his  one  only  substance  and  thinks  he  has 
solved  the  problem  of  the  universe,  and  forever  silenced  all  ques¬ 
tions  as  to  origin  and  cause.  But  when  he  looks  out  from  his 
own  abstractions  into  the  universe  as  it  actually  exists,  he  finds 
the  stubborn  fact  that  it  is  not  a  mere  substance  suggesting  no 
beginning  and  demanding  no  cause.  Every  being  in  it  is  ener¬ 
gizing  in  intense  activity.  Everything  carries  the  thought  back 
demanding  a  cause  and  a  reason.  The  atoms  themselves  are  no 
longer  conceived  in  solid  singleness,  but  intensely  energizing,  per¬ 
haps  themselves  complicated  systems.  Pantheism  cannot  ac¬ 
count  for  the  universe  as  it  actually  exists.  When  we  ask  how  its 
existence  is  accounted  for,  pantheism  only  reiterates,  It  exists. 
When  asked  why  it  is  as  it  is,  with  its  mighty  causal  energies, 
its  order  and  laws,  its  progressive  realization  of  ideals,  its  com¬ 
plex  systems,  its  scientific  constitution,  its  rationality,  wisdom, 
love  and  religion,  pantheism  mumbles,  It  is  the  one  only  sub¬ 
stance.  If  asked  how  the  never-ceasing  energizing  is  accounted 
for,  pantheism  answers  that  it  is  the  absolute  and  unconditioned 
becoming  of  the  one  substance.  It  cannot  account  for  the  intel¬ 
ligent  direction  of  the  universe,  for  the  order  and  law  pervading 
it,  nor  for  its  existence  in  a  scientific  system  comprehending  in¬ 
numerable  beings  in  unity  by  dynamic  and  rational  relations.  It 
cannot  tell  why  the  realities  in  the  universe  can  be  apprehended 
in  their  intellectual  equivalents,  nor  why,  when  so  apprehended, 
they  constitute  science,  nor  why  in  all  thinking  we  assume  that 
the  universe  in  all  its  parts  is  intelligible,  capable  of  being  taken 
up  in  the  forms  of  reason  and  expounded  in  reasonable  and  scien¬ 
tific  thought.  Thus  pantheism,  when  it  comes  out  from  its  closed 


192 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


closets  of  speculation  to  face  the  actual  universe  is  found  to  be 
utterly  inadequate. 

Theism  is  the  only  theory  of  the  universe  which  harmonizes 
with  the  fact  that  it  is  a  rational  and  scientifically  intelligible 
system,  and  explains  why  it  must  be  so.  Mr.  John  Fiske  says 
truly :  “  Our  reason  demands  that  there  shall  be  a  reasonableness 
in  the  constitution  of  things.  ...  No  ingenuity  of  argument  can 
bring  us  to  believe  that  the  infinite  Sustainer  of  the  universe  will 
put  us  to  permanent  intellectual  confusion.  .  .  .  Our  belief  in 
what  we  call  the  evidence  of  our  senses  is  less  strong  than  our 
faith  that  in  the  orderly  sequence  of  events  there  is  a  meaning 
which  our  minds  could  fathom  were  they  only  vast  enough.”1 
For  explaining  the  universe  as  a  reasonable  and  scientifically  in¬ 
telligible  system  pantheism  is  helpless,  and  equally  so  in  all  its 
forms. 

The  question  whether  the  absolute  One  can  coexist  with  the 
many  appeared  early  in  Greek  philosophy.  The  Eleatics  held 
to  the  existence  of  the  absolute  One  and  maintained  that  this  ex¬ 
cluded  the  existence  of  the  many.  Plato  discusses  the  question 
in  the  Parmenides,  maintaining  the  reality  both  of  the  absolute 
One  and  of  the  finite  many,  and  aiming  to  point  out  what  truth 
there  was  in  the  Eleatic  doctrine.  He  teaches  that  behind  the 
phenomenal  world  is  the  world  of  ideas.  In  these  ideas  Plato 
found  the  essential  reality  and  the  essential  intelligibility  of  all 
finite  beings.  The  later  Platonists  recognized  these  ideas  as  the 
archetypal  thoughts  of  God.  So  Plutarch  says :  “  An  idea  is 
incorporeal  and  has  no  subsistence  of  itself,  but  gives  figure  and 
form  unto  shapeless  matter,  and  becomes  the  cause  of  its  mani¬ 
festation.  Socrates  and  Plato  conjecture  that  these  ideas  are  es¬ 
sences  separate  from  matter,  having  their  existence  in  the  reason 
and  imagination  of  the  Deity,  that  is,  of  mind  or  reason.”  2  The 
New  Platonists  of  Alexandria  developed  this  thought  more  fully. 
And  when  the  conflict  of  Christianity  began,  to  attain  a  philosoph¬ 
ical  basis  for  Christian  theism  amid  the  earnest  philosophical 
thinking  of  the  time  and  against  the  assaults  of  unchristian  phi¬ 
losophy,  Christian  thinkers  found  one  basis  for  it  in  this  Platonic 
philosophy.  As  Plato  says :  “  The  universe  is  the  finite  image 
of  real  perfection.”  Therefore  its  evolution  must  be  the  progres¬ 
sive  realization  of  the  perfection  which  it  images,  and  a  progres¬ 
sive  expression  and  revelation  of  the  perfect  archetype  in  the 

1  The  Idea  of  God,  p.  138. 

2  Sentiments  of  Nature  with  which  Philosophers  were  delighted,  bk.  i.  ch.  x. 


THE  ABSOLUTE  BEING  AND  NON-THEISTIC  THEOKIES.  193 


eternal  Reason/  Here  is  a  true  realism  and  a  true  idealism  com¬ 
bined  in  the  theory  of  the  universe.  Here  is  a  philosophical 
basis  for  modern  science,  which  is  intensely  realistic  and  also  rests 
on  the  assumption  of  the  essential  intelligibility  or  reasonableness 
of  the  universe.  As  resting  on  this  rational  realism,  science  is  in 
harmony  with  theism.  For  theism  not  only  assumes  the  reality 
and  the  intelligibility  or  reasonableness  of  the  universe,  but  dis¬ 
closes  the  reason  why  it  is  so. 

In  opposition  to  this  rational  realism  of  theism  and  of  modern 
science,  the  pantheists  still  perpetuate  the  ancient  error,  that  only 
one  being  can  exist  and  that  finite  persons  and  things  are  not  real 
beings  but  mere  modes  in  which  the  absolute  one  exists.  The 
Eleatic  philosophy  began  as  a  pronounced  ontology.  But  it  be¬ 
came  more  and  more  abstract  and  dialectical.  In  Zeno  it  reached 
its  legitimate  issue  and  became  little  more  than  logical  abstrac¬ 
tions  and  even  logical  puzzles,  and  the  processes  of  the  universe 
were  confounded  with  processes  of  logic.  Modern  pantheism  re¬ 
veals  the  same  tendency. 

It  is  evident  that  the  universe  cannot  be  accounted  for  and  ex¬ 
plained  by  an  absolute  that  is  substance  only,  nor  by  an  absolute 
that  is  substance  and  cause  only.  It  must  be  also  Reason.  The 
universe  can  be  accounted  for  and  understood  only  by  its  relation 
to  an  absolute  Being  that  is  the  three  in  one :  Substance,  that  is, 
being  persisting  in  unity  and  identity ;  Qgaise,  that  is,  being  en¬ 
dowed  with  power  and  energizing  efficiently,  the  First  Cause ; 
and  Reason,  that  is,  being  energizing  in  rational  intelligence  and 
freedom.  The  universe,  therefore,  as  theism  theoretically  con¬ 
structs  it,  is  a  rational  system  in  which  a  multitude  of  individual, 
determinate  beings  are  united  in  common  dependence  on  God  for 
their  being  and  powers,  and  which  in  its  constitution  and  evolu¬ 
tion  is  the  expression  of  the  archetypal  ideas  of  God,  the  absolute 
Reason,  and  the  progressive  realization  of  the  ends  of  his  wisdom 
and  love. 

5.  Pantheism  is  incompatible  with  free  will,  with  moral  respon¬ 
sibility  and  obligation,  and  with  religion. 

Spinoza,  it  is  true,  uses  the  word  freedom  ;  he  defines  it:  “That 
is  said  to  be  free  which  exists  by  the  sole  necessity  of  its  nature, 
and  is  determined  to  action  by  itself  alone.  That  is  necessary, 
or  rather  constrained,  which  is  determined  to  exist  and  to  act  in 
a  certain  determinate  manner  by  something  else.”  Freedom  as 
thus  defined  can  be  predicated  of  the  self-existent  Being  alone. 

And  even  as  predicated  of  the  absolute  Being,  it  affirms  only 

13 


194 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


that  it  acts  according  to  the  necessity  of  its  nature,  not  by  a 
rational  free  choice.  Freedom  of  the  will  in  its  proper  sense, 
as  freedom  to  determine  in  the  light  of  reason  the  exertion  and 
direction  of  energy,  he  explicitly  denies  both  of  God  and  man. 
While  he  says  “  God  alone  is  a  free  cause  ”  in  the  sense  of  his 
definition,  he  says  also:  “Will  cannot  be  called  a  free  cause,” 
and  u  God  does  not  act  from  freedom  of  will,”  and  “In  the  mind 
there  is  no  such  thing  as  absolute  or  free  will,  but  the  mind  is 
determined  to  will  this  or  that  by  a  cause  which  is  determined 
by  another  cause,  and  so  on  to  infinity.”  This  results  necessarily 
from  the  pantheistic  conception  that  the  finite  has  no  real  being, 
but  consists  of  modes  of  the  absolute.  A  man  is  not  a  per¬ 
son  ;  his  mind  is  only  a  “collection  of  ideas ;  ”  “  will  and  under¬ 
standing  are  nothing  but  particular  ideas  and  volitions.”  Hence 
he  is  careful  to  explain  that  the  common  belief  in  free  will  is 
an  illusion  :  “  Men  believe  they  are  free  because  they  are  con¬ 
scious  of  their  volitions  and  inclinations,  and  ignorant  of  the 
causes  by  which  they  are  disposed  to  desire  and  will.”  We  are 
truly  free,  according  to  his  teaching,  only  when  we  affirm  some¬ 
thing  self-evident  or  demonstratively  certain,  as  that  two  and 
two  make  four.  The  series  of  ideas  and  volitions  which  consti¬ 
tute  the  mind  of  man  is  determined  as  resistlessly  by  the  power 
of  the  absolute  in  its  unconscious  and  necessary  evolution  as 
is  the  motion  of  the  planets  or  the  flowing  of  water,  j  Spinoza 
says  that  he  conceives  of  “  the  soul  acting  under  fixed  laws, 
and,  as  it  were,  a  sort  of  spiritual  automaton.”1;  And  here  again 
in  this  conception  of  the  mind  as  a  series  of  states  of  conscious¬ 
ness,  we  see  pantheism,  which  would  have  the  knowledge  of 
being  begin  with  the  knowledge  of  the  absolute,  coming  out 
into  agreement  with  Spencer,  Mill  and  Comte,  and  teaching  a 
doctrine  which  involves  phenomenalism  and  universal  skepti¬ 
cism.  Thus  it  is  evident  that  pantheism  excludes  all  free  will 
both  from  man  and  God. 

But  if  there  is  in  the  universe  no  rational  free  choice,  no 
power  of  determining  in  the  light  of  reason  the  exertion  and 
direction  of  energy,  then  there  is  in  the  universe  no  basis  of 
moral  obligation,  law  and  character  ;  the  words  are  entirely 
without  meaning.  Spinoza  has  written  a  treatise  on  ethics,  and 
was  himself  a  careful  observer  of  moral  law.  This,  however, 

1  Spinoza,  Ethics,  part  i.  Def.  7;  Prop.  17,  Cor.  2;  Prop  32  and  Cor.  1; 
part  ii.  Prop.  48,  Prop.  15,  Prop.  49;  part  i.  Appendix  ;  Letter  34,  to  Blyen- 
bergh;  De  Intell.  Emend,  cap.  xi.  §  85. 


THE  ABSOLUTE  BEING  AND  NON-THEISTIC  THEORIES.  195 


was  a  merely  factual  recognition  of  man’s  moral  constitution, 
which  no  philosopher  can  overlook.  But  there  is  in  his  philos¬ 
ophy  no  basis  for  the  distinctively  ethical  ideas. 

As  it  gives  no  basis  for  moral  ideas,  so  it  gives  no  scope  for 
moral  action.  Christianity  has  revealed  the  worth  of  a  man  in 
his  individual  personality  and  the  sacredness  of  his  rights.  It 
reveals  him  as  a  personal  spirit  in  the  likeness  of  God,  as  a 
child  of  the  heavenly  Father,  the  subject  of  God’s  law  ;  as,  after 
he  had  sinned,  the  object  of  God’s  redeeming  love,  accepted  and 
justified  on  condition  of  his  own  personal  return  to  God  in  peni¬ 
tential  trust,  admitted  to  communion  with  him,  destined  to  be 
glorified  with  him  forever.  Pantheism  takes  all  this  away.  Man 
is  no  longer  a  personal  spirit,  a  child  of  God ;  he  is  only  a  tran¬ 
sient  mode  in  which  for  the  time  being  the  unconscious  sub¬ 
stance  of  the  universe  exists  ;  and  this  substance  knows  him  not, 
for  it  has  no  knowledge  of  itself.  Hence  pantheism  knows  no 
personal  immortality.  Its  old  comparison  is  always  true  ;  man 
is  like  a  bottle  of  water  in  the  ocean.  The  water  is  separated 
for  a  little  time  in  its  inclosure  ;  but  when  the  glass  is  broken,  it 
is  lost  again  in  the  ocean  whence  it  came  and  part  of  which  it 
was.  Spinoza,  it  is  true,  holds  to  a  certain  immortality.  But  as 
the  soul  is  but  a  collection  of  ideas,  the  immortality  is  the  con¬ 
tinued  existence  of  the  ideas  as  truths,  not  in  the  least  the  con¬ 
scious  existence  of  a  personal  spirit. 

Pantheism  also  gives  no  basis  for  recognizing  the  dependence 
of  society  on  the  action  of  man  to  make  it  better  ;  it  knows  no 
kingdom  of  God  rising  by  the  prayers  and  labors  of  self-denying 
men  and  women.  The  world  cannot  be  made  better  than  it  is, 
for  it  is  the  necessary  unfolding  of  the  absolute  Being.  Even  if 
it  is  unfolding  to  better  conditions,  a  man  can  do  nothing  to 
hasten  the  evolution,  which  rolls  on  its  fixed  course  made  neces¬ 
sary  by  the  nature  of  the  absolute  Being.  And  here  again  pan¬ 
theism  comes  into  agreement  with  the  current  agnostic  and 
materialistic  speculations  respecting  evolution. 

Pantheism  cannot  satisfy  the  religious  needs  of  man.  It  re¬ 
veals  no  personal,  intelligent  God,  no  heavenly  Father  who  has 
either  knowledge  or  care  of  men,  no  God  with  whom  communion 
is  possible  or  the  worship  of  whom  can  have  any  significance. 
Religion  is  needed  for  the  very  purpose  of  lifting  man  from  ex¬ 
clusive  dependence  on  the  blind  and  resistless  forces  of  nature  to 
the  consciousness  of  dependence  on  and  trust  in  the  God  of  per¬ 
fect  wisdom  and  love.  Pantheism  intensifies  this  conscious  need 


196 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


into  despair,  by  revealing  God  himself  as  only  the  insensate  sub¬ 
stance  of  the  universe  which  holds  us  helpless  in  its  blind  and 
resistless  mechanism. 

As  to  sin  against  God  it  does  not  exist.  What  we  call  sin  is 
simply  the  necessary  action  of  man  in  accordance  with  his  na¬ 
ture,  as  the  absolute  substance  resistlessly  unrolls  itself  in  him. 
On  this  basis  Spinoza  constructs  a  theodicy :  44  This  necessary 
substance  is  obliged  to  modify  itself  according  to  all  reality  pos¬ 
sible,  so  that  error,  crime,  pain  and  sorrow,  being  modes  of  exist¬ 
ence  as  really  as  virtue,  truth  and  happiness,  the  universe  must 
contain  all  these.”  44  The  original  principle  of  things  having 
power  to  produce  evil  and  good  and  doing  all  that  it  has  power 
to  do,  there  must  be  both  good  and  evil  in  the  universe.” 

Since  pantheism  gives  no  basis  either  for  moral  law,  obligation 
and  character  or  for  religion,  it  is  obliged  to  fall  back  for  the 
guidance  of  life  on  the  principle,  44  Follow  nature.”  This, 
though  with  varying  meanings,  was  the  maxim  of  Stoicism, 
which  in  its  original  form  was  pantheistic.  This  is  the  legitimate 
outcome  of  pantheism.  All  the  action  in  the  universe  is  the 
necessary  unrolling  or  evolving  of  the  one  absolute  substance 
according  to  its  nature,  and  all  finite  things  are  the  modes  in 
which  that  necessary  evolution  goes  on  and  is  manifested.  Hence 
every  being  must  act  according  to  its  nature.  As  to  avoiding 
sin  and  evil  by  obedience  to  any  moral  law,  it  is  idle  to  attempt 
it ;  one  cannot  escape  his  own  nature. So  Goethe  puts  it,  and 
Carlyle  quotes  it  with  admiration :  — 

“  What  wilt  thou  teach  me  the  foremost  thing  ? 

Wilt  teach  me  from  off  my  own  shadow  to  spring?  ” 

Ralph  W.  Emerson,  who  seemed  in  one  period  of  his  life  to  be 
tinctured  with  pantheistic  sentiments,  often  falls  into  this  line  of 
moral  teaching.  44  Nature  is  no  saint.  The  lights  of  the  church, 
the  ascetics,  Gentoos,  Grahamites,  she  does  not  distinguish  by 
any  favor ;  she  comes  eating  and  drinking  and  sinning.  Her 
darlings,  the  great,  the  strong,  the  beautiful,  are  not  children  of 
our  law ;  do  not  come  out  of  the  Sunday-school ;  nor  weigh  their 
food ;  nor  punctually  keep  the  commandments.  If  we  will  be 
strong  with  her  strength  we  must  not  harbor  such  disconsolate  * 
consciences,  borrowed  too  from  the  consciences  of  other  nations. 
We  must  set  up  the  strong  present  tense  against  the  rumors  of 
wrath  past  or  to  come.”  In  Self-reliance  he  says:  44 My  friend 
suggested,  These  impulses  may  be  from  below  not  from  above. 

I  replied,  They  do  not  seem  to  me  to  be  such ;  but  if  I  am  the 


THE  ABSOLUTE  BEING  AND  NON-THEISTIC  THEORIES.  197 


devil’s  child,  I  will  live  then  for  the  devil ;  no  law  can  be  sacred 
to  me  but  that  of  my  own  nature ;  good  and  bad  are  but  names 
readily  transferable  to  that  or  this.  The  only  right  is  that  which 
is  after  my  constitution  ;  the  only  wrong  what  is  against  it.  .  .  . 
My  life  is  not  an  apology  but  a  life  ;  it  is  for  itself  and  not  for  a  ' 
spectacle.  I  much  prefer  it  should  be  of  a  lower  strain,  so  it  be 
genuine  and  equal,  than  that  it  should  be  glittering  and  un¬ 
steady.  ...  I  know  that  for  myself  it  makes  no  difference  whether 
I  do  or  forbear  those  actions  which  are  reckoned  excellent ;  I  can¬ 
not  consent  to  pay  for  a  privilege  when  I  have  intrinsic  right.” 

In  the  Nominalist  and  Realist  he  says :  “  All  the  universe  over 
there  is  but  one  thing — this  old  two-face,  Creator-creature,  mind- 
matter,  right-wrong,  of  which  any  proposition  may  be  affirmed 
or  denied.” 

In  like  manner  this  philosophy  explains  all  human  history  as 
the  necessary  development  of  nature.  The  cruelties  of  the  In¬ 
quisition,  the  corruption  of  imperial  Rome,  the  rise  and  fall  of 
religions  are  necessary  results  of  the  development  of  nature  in 
human  history.  In  Hare’s  Life  of  Sterling  the  latter  is  reported 
as  saying  :  “  All  beliefs  have  followed  each  other  according  to  a 
fixed  law,  and  are  connected  by  the  same  with  all  the  circum¬ 
stances  of  each  generation  ;  in  obedience  to  this  law  they  emerge, 
unfold  themselves,  pass  away,  or  are  transmuted  into  other  modes 
of  faith.”  And  Emerson  says  in  Representative  Men:  “Our 
colossal  theologies  of  Judaism,  Christism,  Buddhism,  Mahomet-  . 
anism  are  the  necessary  and  structural  action  of  the  human 
mind.” 

Pantheism  in  its  practical  application  has  a  peculiar  fascina¬ 
tion  for  many  minds.  In  the  maxim,  “Follow  nature,”  a  side 
of  truth  is  presented  which  is  overlooked  in  the  conception  of 
right  living  founded  exclusively  on  law  and  duty  and  tending  to 
perfunctory  obedience,  morbid  self  -  scrutiny  in  conscious  con¬ 
straint  and  restraint,  and  ascetic  service.  Christianity  abun¬ 
dantly  supplies  this  deficiency,  while  supplementing  also  the 
much  greater  one-sidedness  and  deficiencies  of  pantheism.  It 
quickens  man’s  spiritual  powers  and  susceptibilities,  and  in  the 
life  of  Christian  faith  and  love  realizes  all  the  spontaneity  and 
much  more  than  all  the  power  of  a  life  energized  merely  by  the 
impulses  of  nature;  these  it  also  corrects  and  purifies,  develops 
them  to  their  normal  activity,  regulates  and  directs  them  in 
righteousness,  and  realizes  the  spontaneous,  full  and  harmonious 
action  of  all  the  powers  in  the  life  of  Christian  faith  and  love. 


198 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


For  many  persons,  in  whom  the  aesthetic  predominates  over 
the  moral  and  makes  the  imperative  of  the  law  irksome,  there  is 
a  fascination  in  the  pantheistic  conception  of  God  as  present  in 
all  the  ongoing  of  the  universe  and  revealing  himself  in  all  its 
beauty  and  sublimity.  This,  however,  can  repel  only  from  a 
deistic  idea  of  God  as  the  first  cause,  whom  nature  hides  rather 
than  reveals,  and  who  is  separated  from  us  by  the  whole  series 
of  events  in  the  course  of  nature  ;  a  period  of  duration,  as  evolu¬ 
tion  now  presents  it,  so  inconceivably  long  as  practically  to  ex¬ 
clude  God  from  the  universe.  But  theism  rightly  apprehended 
gives,  as  really  as  pantheism,  the  God  present  and  revealing  him¬ 
self  in  all  the  ongoing  of  the  universe.  And  it  gives  far  more 
than  pantheism  ;  for  in  the  theistic  conception  it  is  no  longer  the 
presence  and  revelation  of  unconscious  indeterminate  substance 
or  pure  being  or  the  unconscious  absolute,  by  whatever  name  it 
may  be  called;  but  it  is  the  presence  and  revelation  of  the  living 
God,  the  absolute  Reason,  energizing  in  perfect  wisdom  and  love, 
the  heavenly  Father  whom  all  his  children  may  trust,  love  and 
obey,  and  with  whom  they  may  work  for  the  establishment  over 
all  the  earth  of  the  reign?  of  righteousness  and  good-will.  Feuer¬ 
bach  sneers  at  theism://1  To  enrich  God,  man  must  become  poor; 
that  God  may  be  all,  man  must  be  nothing.”  This  is  entirely 
true  of  pantheism.  The  very  contrary  is  true  of  theism.  The 
greatness  of  God  reveals  the  greatness  of  man,  who  is  the  object 
of  God’s  moral  government  and  paternal  love,  who  can  know 
God,  commune  with  him  and  serve  him. 

6.  Pantheism  has  appeared  in  various  forms  differing  primarily 
in  the  idea  of  what  the  absolute  is.  For  the  sake  of  definiteness 
of  thought  I  have  principally  kept  in  view,  in  this  brief  discus¬ 
sion,  Spinoza’s  pantheism,  which  is  perhaps  the  most  intelligible 
and  the  most  completely  and  consistently  wrought  out  of  all  the 
forms  of  the  doctrine.  In  another  form  of  it,  the  Ego  has  been 
assumed  as  the  “original  one  and  only  substance,  and  in  this  one 
substance  all  possible  accidents  and  all  possible  realities  are  pos¬ 
ited ;  ”  and  “the  living  and  active  moral  order  is  God;  we  need 
no  other  God,  and  can  comprehend  no  other.”  The  absolute  One 
has  also  been  assumed  to  be  the  subject  and  object  in  identity, 
the  absolute  subject-object  taking  the  place  of  Spinoza’s  one  and 
only  substance.  It  has  been  assumed  to  be  pure  being  which  is 
wholly  indeterminate  and  identical  with  nothing ;  it  is  a  think¬ 
ing  process,  an  “immanent  infinite  negativity;”  thought  is 
identical  with  being,  and  the  processes  of  the  universe  are  iden- 


THE  ABSOLUTE  BEING  AND  NON-THEISTIC  THEORIES.  199 


tical  with  processes  of  logic ;  the  absolute  becomes  a  logical 
order,  as  in  another  form  it  had  become  a  moral  order,  and  the 
issue  is  absolute  idealism.  It  has  been  called  the  Unconscious 
and  described  as  reason  existing  without  personality,  conscious¬ 
ness  or  freedom.  It  has  appeared  in  mysticism  in  which  the  soul 
rapt  in  devotion  passes  into  abnegation  of  itself  and  loses  itself 
and  all  things  in  God.  But  in  all  these  types  Spinozism  takes 
on  new  forms  but  remains  unchanged  in  its  essential  principles  ; 
and  the  arguments  which  refute  it  are  applicable  without  essen¬ 
tial  change  to  pantheism  in  all  its  forms.  Their  authors  some¬ 
times  reject  the  name  of  pantheism  ;  but  it  is  as  a  savage,  when 
his  child  is  ill,  thinks  that  by  changing  its  name  the  evil  disease 
will  be  deceived  and  misled  and  the  child  will  escape  its  assaults. 
These  several  theosophies  all  imply  that  the  universe  and  its 
ultimate  ground  are  one  and  the  same ;  that  finite  beings  are 
only  modes  in  which  the  absolute  exists,  and  have  no  real  being 
themselves;  that  the  unity  of  the  universe  is  not  in  causal  de¬ 
pendence,  that  its  ongoing  is  not  by  the  energizing  of  a  transitive 
cause,  but  is  an  everlasting  becoming,  the  unrolling  or  evolution 
of  the  absolute  Being  into  its  varying  modes  of  existence;  that 
this  evolution  goes  on  in  unconsciousness  and  necessity,  without 
intelligence  or  freedom  ;  that  the  absolute  Being  first  comes  to 
consciousness  in  man;  that  there  is  no  individual  immortality; 
that  there  is  no  free  agency  either  in  God  or  man ;  and  the  legiti¬ 
mate  inference  is  that  there  is  no  basis  for  moraL  responsibility, 
obligation  and  law.  They  all  present  an  unconscious  and  imper¬ 
sonal  absolute,  by  faith  in  which  man  cannot  be  lifted  from  his 
conscious  dependence  on  the  necessary  and  resistless  forces  of 
nature ;  which  can  no  more  be  the  object  of  trust,  worship,  com¬ 
munion  and  love  than  a  log  of  wood  or  a  block  of  marble  ;  which 
is  fashioned  into  a  god  by  the  imagination  as  an  idol  is  by  the 
hand ;  and  which,  should  it  come  to  consciousness,  would  be  as 
much  astonished  at  finding  itself  a  god  as  was  the  wooden  gar¬ 
den-god  of  Horace :  — 

“  Olim  truncus  eram  ficulnus,  inutile  lignum  ; 

Cum  faber  incertus  scamnum,  faceretne  Priapum, 

Maluit  esse  Deum.  Deus  inde  ego.”  —  Sat.  lib.  i.  viii.  1-3. 

7.  These  profound  speculations  are  not  to  be  dismissed  as  idle 
and  worthless.  They  have  brought  to  notice  aspects  of  truth 
which  in  the  dogmatizing,  rationalistic  and  deistic  tendencies 
of  thought  had  fallen  into  obscurity,  and  which  Christian  theism 
cannot  safely  overlook.  Among  these  may  be  mentioned  the 


200 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


immanence  of  God  in  nature  and  his  presence  with  the  spirit  of 
man  and  his  action  on  it ;  the  idea  of  the  absolute  as  the  su¬ 
preme  and  universal  Reason  energizing  and  expressing  its  arche¬ 
typal  thoughts  in  the  universe,  and  with  which  the  reason  of 
man  in  its  constituent  elements  and  essential  principles  is  in 
harmony ;  the  intimations  of  God  in  the  constitution  of  man,  so 
that  the  man,  in  unfolding  his  consciousness  of  himself,  finds  it 
inseparably  interwoven  with  the  consciousness  of  God ;  the  con¬ 
tinuity  of  the  world-process  and  the  true  relations  and  harmony 
of  matter  and  spirit ;  the  participation  of  man  in  the  sphere  of 
the  spiritual  and  the  supernatural,  so  that  he  finds  himself  “  at 
home  ”  in  it  and  in  the  presence  of  God  and  in  fellowship  with 
him  “  in  whom  we  live  and  move  and  have  our  being.”  It  will 
be  a  fatal  mistake  if  Christian  teachers  heedlessly  think  that 
these  important  truths  are  inseparable  from  pantheism,  and  for 
their  support  begin  to  put  under  them  distinctive  elements  of 
pantheistic  monism  and  to  declare  that  Christian  theism  requires 
pantheism  for  its  full  development  and  vindication.  The  Chris¬ 
tian  doctrine  that  God  is  the  eternal  and  personal  spirit,  the 
heavenly  Father,  the  gracious  Redeemer  in  Christ,  carries  in  it 
all  these  truths,  and  presents  them  with  a  clearness,  self-consist¬ 
ency,  fulness  and  power  which  pantheism  can  never  attain.  To 
present  them  effectually  is  one  great  work  to  which  Christian 
theologians  of  this  day  are  called.  And  no  one  is  a  pantheist 
who  recognizes  the  conscious  personality  of  God,  the  absolute 
Reason  or  Spirit  energizing  in  freedom,  and  man  in  God’s  like¬ 
ness  as  a  rational  and  free  personal  being. 

It  is  specially  claimed  in  behalf  of  idealistic  pantheism  that  it, 
more  than  theism,  recognizes  deity  as  immanent  in  nature,  and 
realizes  the  demand  of  religion  for  a  continuous  consciousness  of 
his  presence. 

In  reading  Hegel  one  is  impressed  with  the  immediacy  of  the 
divine  presence.  Every  energy  acting  in  nature  is  presented  as 
the  immediate  energy  of  God  acting  before  and  on  and  in  us. 
When  believers  in  God  have  practically  fallen  into  deistic  con¬ 
ceptions  and  think  of  him  only  as  outside  of  the  mechanism  of 
the  universe  and  removed  far  away  into  the  past  at  the  begin¬ 
ning  of  things,  then  the  pantheistic  teaching  may  practically  re¬ 
call  the  thought  to  the  immediate  presence  of  God  in  all  that 
is.  But  when  we  think  farther  we  see  that  this  excellent  prac¬ 
tical  influence  is  inconsistent  with  pantheism  itself.  The  whole 
conception  of  nearness  to  God  becomes  an  illusion  when  we  re- 


THE  ABSOLUTE  BEING  AND  NON-THEISTIC  THEORIES.  201 


gard  him  as  the  only  being  and  men  but  modes  in  which  the 
being  exists.  The  absolute  is  no  longer  a  personal  being  with 
whom  man  can  commune,  and  the  man  is  not  a  personal  being 
to  commune  with  him.  The  conception,  which  seemed  at  first  so 
grand  and  so  inspiring,  sinks  into  the  clammy  conception  of  God 
as  the  one  only  substance,  or  as  pure  or  indeterminate  being 
necessarily  evolving  unconscious  and  insensate  into  all  that  is ; 
and  of  man,  not  as  a  personal  individual  with  reason,  free  will, 
personal  obligation  and  responsibility,  but  only  as  a  mode  in 
which  the  absolute  in  its  helpless  and  resistless  evolving  appears 
for  the  time  being.  It  is  theism,  not  pantheism,  which  gives 
us  God,  the  eternal  Spirit,  immanent  in  the  universe,  directing 
all  its  energies  to  the  ends  of  wisdom  and  love  and  revealing 
himself  in  all  its  ongoing ;  and  which  gives  us  man,  the  personal 
spirit  in  the  image  of  God,  receiving  God’s  continuous  revelation, 
conscious  of  his  own  responsibility  and  obligation  to  him,  accept¬ 
ing  his  grace  and  living  in  his  immediate  presence  —  the  spirit  of 
man  face  to  face  with  the  Spirit  of  God. 

IV.  Materialism.  —  Materialism  is  the  doctrine  that  matter 
with  the  force  essential  in  it  is  eternal  and  that  all  the  realities 
in  the  universe  are  merely  matter  and  force  in  different  modes 
of  existence.  It  excludes  spirit,  personality,  the  supernatural, 
whether  in  God  or  man. 

Materialism  is  monism  in  the  sense  that  the  absolute  ground 
of  the  universe  and  the  universe  itself  are  the  same  ;  also  as 
Haeckel  says,  it  assumes  “  the  inseparable  connection  of  matter, 
form  and  force.  .  .  .  Nowhere  in  the  whole  domain  of  knowl¬ 
edge  does  it  recognize  real  metaphysics,  but  only  physics.”  1  It 
declares  that  physical  nature  is  all. 

But  materialism  is  not  monism  in  the  strictest  sense,  because 
it  recognizes  an  eternal  plurality  of  beings,  the  atoms.  Matter 
is  only  a  general  term  for  this  innumerable  multitude  of  individ¬ 
uals  ;  their  unity  is  not  that  of  one  only  being,  like  that  of  the 
pantheistic  monism,  but  a  dynamic  unity  of  the  many  in  a  sys¬ 
tem,  acting  in  invariable  uniformity  under  fixed  causal  laws.  In 
strict  propriety  monism  is  the  name  only  of  the  pantheistic  doc¬ 
trine  that  the  absolute  is  the  one  and  only  being.  On  the  con¬ 
trary  the  atomic  theory  of  the  universe  has  been  inherent  in  ma¬ 
terialism  from  the  days  of  Democritus  and  Lucretius  until  now. 

Whatever  the  likeness  in  the  practical  issues  of  pantheism  and 
materialism,  they  belong  genetically,  from  the  root  up,  to  two  in- 

1  Creation,  vol.  i.  pp.  35,  37,  Trans. 


202 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


compatible  theories  of  knowledge  and  types  of  thought.  Pan¬ 
theism  begins  with  the  universal  of  which  all  particulars  are  only 
the  manifestation,  having  no  individual  and  real  being  of  them¬ 
selves.  Materialism  begins  with  individuals,  each  known  as  a 
concrete  being,  and  proceeds  to  a  unity  of  these  in  dynamic  rela¬ 
tions  and  under  fixed  laws  in  a  system  capable  of  being  known 
scientifically.  They  differ  also  in  method.  The  former  proceeds 
by  the  a  priori  method.  It  starts  with  the  idea  of  the  absolute 
Being  and  deduces  from  it  what  the  absolute  Being  must  be  and 
what  the  universe  must  be  in  which  the  absolute  must  manifest 
itself.  By  this  a  priori  method  it  deduces,  not  only  what  the 
absolute  Being  is,  but  also  the  very  process  by  which  it  evolves 
itself  into  the  finite  and  returns  into  itself  again  enriched  by  the 
evolution  ;  in  the  same  way  is  determined  what  the  course  of  the 
world’s  history  must  be.  Hence  pantheism  asks  no  evidences  of 
the  existence  of  its  so-called  God  and  admits  none.  It  is  not 
surprising  therefore  that  pantheists  ridicule  the  proofs  that  God 
exists,  as  worthless  to  cultivated  minds,  and  that  one  of  them, 
quoted  by  Ulrici,  said  that  they  are  only  “  sweetened  water  for 
sloppy  girls.”  The  advocates  of  materialism,  on  the  contrary, 
are  generally  loud  in  claiming  that  all  knowledge  proceeds  slowly 
and  cautiously  by  observing  particulars  and  individuals  and  by 
the  induction  of  general  laws. 

It  is  evident  that  physical  science  belongs  to  the  latter  of  these 
two  types  of  thought ;  and  to  a  sedulous  adherence  to  its  prin¬ 
ciples  and  methods  physical  science  owes  its  great  progress.  To 
this  type  of  thought  theism  also  belongs.  It  proceeds  from  the 
individual  to  the  universal,  from  the  many  to  the  unity  of  all. 
It  is  evident  that  the  only  unity  possible  in  this  type  of  thought 
is  a  unity  of  the  many  in  a  scientific  system,  a  unity  of  beings  in 
dynamic  relations  under  rational  principles  and  laws  and  directed 
to  rational  ideals  and  ends.  And  it  is  evident,  further,  that,  in 
this  type  of  thought,  the  only  ultimate  unity  conceivable  rests  on 
perfect  Reason,  as  the  ultimate  ground  of  the  universe,  express¬ 
ing  therein  its  archetypal  thought  and  progressively  realizing 
the  ends  of  its  wisdom  and  love. 

It  seems  strange  that  materialists,  claiming  above  all  things  to 
be  scientific,  appropriate  to  their  doctrine  the  pantheistic  name 
of  monism  and  try  to  put  themselves  on  the  “  high  priori  road  ” 
which  belongs  to  a  totally  different  type  of  thought.  And  yet 
perhaps  we  need  not  wonder.  If  with  physical  science  and  theism 
we  begin  with  the  particular  and  the  individual  and  proceed  to 


THE  ABSOLUTE  BEING  AND  NON-THEISTIC  THEORIES.  203 


the  general  and  the  universal,  the  only  unity  of  all  things  which 
is  possible  is  in  a  rational  system  of  interaction  under  law ;  and 
this  is  possible  only  in  the  recognition  of  God,  the  absolute  Rea¬ 
son.  If  the  scientist  will  deny  God  he  must  abandon  the  princi¬ 
ples  and  methods  of  scientific  investigation  and  transport  himself 
to  the  false  metaphysics  and  methods  of  pantheism.  Evidently, 
then,  the  two  systems,  the  pantheistic  and  the  materialistic,  are 
different  in  principle  and  origin  and  totally  incompatible.  Sci¬ 
ence  and  its  methods  can  never  lead  to  pantheistic  monism,  the 
unity  of  the  all  in  one  only  being.  According  to  the  true  theory 
of  knowledge  and  the  principle  and  methods  of  scientific  investi¬ 
gation,  pantheism  is  impossible.  And  according  to  the  same, 
materialism  has  no  standing  ground  ;  for  the  existence  of  God  is 
necessary  to  solving  the  problem  of  the  reason  and  reaching  the 
unity  of  the  many  in  a  rational  system. 

Materialism  is,  more  than  pantheism,  in  accord  with  theism, 
in  that  it  begins  with  the  knowledge  of  particular  beings,  and 
proceeds  from  the  individual  to  the  general,  from  the  finite  and 
conditioned  to  the  absolute  and  unconditioned  ;  also  in  that  it 
necessitates  a  unity,  not  of  one  substance  and  one  being,  but  of 
many  beings  in  a  rational  system.  On  the  other  hand  it  is,  less 
than  pantheism,  in  accord  with  theism  in  that  it  practically  fails 
to  recognize  the  true  absolute  and  leaves  us  shut  up  within  the 
finite. 

And  this  leads  to  another  criticism  of  materialism.  It  does 
not  give  the  real  absolute.  Matter  cannot  be  the  absolute  or 
unconditioned  being.  In  its  essence  it  is  dependent  and  lim¬ 
ited.  By  its  definition  it  is  contained  in  and  occupies  space, 
is  composed  of  parts,  is  divisible  ;  its  parts  are  in  continual  mo¬ 
tion  and  change  ;  and  materialism  assumes  a  definite  quantity 
of  matter  and  force,  never  increased  or  diminished,  conceivably 
measurable  in  bulk  as  occupying  so  many  cubic  miles,  in  weight 
as  so  many  tons,  in  foot-pounds  as  doing  so  much  work.  Pro¬ 
fessor  Clerk-Maxwell  says  of  the  atoms  :  “  Though  in  the  course 
of  ages  catastrophes  have  occurred  and  may  yet  occur  in  the 
heavens,  though  ancient  systems  be  dissolved  and  new  systems 
evolved  out  of  their  ruins,  the  molecules  out  of  which  these  sys¬ 
tems  are  built,  the  foundation  stones  of  the  material  universe, 
remain  unbroken  and  unworn.”  But  when  we  consider  more 
closely  the  atoms  as  science  now  regards  them,  we  find  that  even 
these  are  not  ultimate,  but  point  back  unmistakably  to  a  cause 
beyond  all  the  course  of  nature  and  beyond  themselves.  Materi- 


204 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


alism  still  leaves  also  the  dualism  of  matter  and  force.  Plainly 
materialism  gives  us  no  real  absolute  or  unconditioned,  and  no 
real  monism.  We  must  go  beyond  and  behind  matter  to  find  the 
ultimate  ground  and  unity  of  the  universe.  Accordingly  Mr. 
Huxley  says :  “  The  man  of  science,  who  forgetting  the  limits  of 
philosophical  inquiry  slides  from  these  (physical)  formulas  and 
symbols  into  what  is  commonly  understood  by  materialism,  seems 
to  me  to  place  himself  on  a  level  with  the  mathematician,  who 
should  mistake  the  x's  and  y's  with  which  he  works  his  problems 
for  real  entities  —  and  with  this  disadvantage  as  compared  with 
the  mathematician,  that  the  blunders  of  the  latter  are  of  no 
practical  consequence,  while  the  errors  of  systematic  materialism 
may  paralyze  the  energies  and  destroy  the  beauty  of  a  life.”  1 

Another  criticism  is  that  materialism  rests  on  the  unwarranted 
assumption  that  man  has  knowledge  only  through  the  senses. 
This  is  the  subjective  side  of  materialism  to  which  the  corre¬ 
sponding  objective  side  is  that  nothing  exists  but  matter  and 
force.  For  this  theory  there  is  no  positive  argument,  while  the 
evidence  of  consciousness  and  of  reason  is  against  it.  The  argu¬ 
ment  for  materialism,  so  far  as  it  rests  on  this  theory,  resolves 
itself  into  the  puerile  remark  of  Laplace,  that  he  had  searched  the 
heavens  with  his  telescope  but  had  found  no  God.  This  is  sim¬ 
ply  saying  that  nothing  exists  which  the  senses  cannot  perceive. 
If  he  had  found  with  his  telescope  what  he  took  for  God,  the  fact 
that  he  found  it  with  a  telescope  would  prove  that  it  was  not 
God.  This  argument  was  well  parodied  by  the  farmer  who  said 
he  had  searched  his  sack  of  meal  through  and  through  and  could 
find  no  miller.  Virchow  says  :  “  Of  all  kinds  of  dogmatism,  the 
materialistic  is  the  most  dangerous,  because  it  denies  its  own  dog¬ 
matism  and  appears  in  the  garb  of  science  ;  because  it  professes 
to  rest  on  fact  when  it  is  but  speculation  ;  and  because  it  at¬ 
tempts  to  annex  territories  to  natural  science  before  they  have 
been  fairly  conquered.”  2 

Materialism,  while  denying  personality,  cannot  account  for  the 
facts  of  personality.  And  in  denying  it,  it  departs  from  the  meth¬ 
ods  of  scientific  reasoning.  Crookes  discovered  a  new  metal, 
Thallium,  from  a  sharp  brilliant  green  line  differing  essentially 
from  any  one  before  observed.  If  he  had  reasoned  as  the  mate¬ 
rialist  does,  he  would  have  said,  “  As  there  are  but  sixty-four  ele¬ 
ments,  this  must  be  one  of  them.”  But  he  did  reason  scien¬ 
tifically  and  said,  “  This  is  a  new  line  never  before  seen  in  the 
1  Lay  Sermons,  p.  160.  2  Nature,  Nov.  1874. 


THE  ABSOLUTE  BEING  AND  NON-THEISTIC  THEORIES.  205 


spectrum ;  it  must  reveal  a  new  element  never  known  before.’9 
The  scientific  method,  applied  in  like  manner  to  the  facts  of  per¬ 
sonality  observed  in  man,  requires  the  inference  that  there  must 
be  something  which  transcends  the  mechanism  of  physics  and  is 
not  included  in  matter  and  its  forces. 

It  is  equally  true  that  materialism  cannot  account  for  the  phys¬ 
ical  phenomena  of  the  universe.  Chemical  affinity,  heat,  light 
and  electricity,  gravitation,  the  persistence  of  force  make  clear 
the  course  of  physical  action  within  certain  limits,  but  each  fails 
to  be  in  its  own  sphere  the  ultimate  explanation,  and  brings  us 
face  to  face  with  the  mysterious  power  beyond.  This  is  contin¬ 
ually  appearing  in  the  speculations  of  scientists.  In  discussing 
the  supposed  dissipation  of  heat  and  the  consequent  loss  of  en¬ 
ergy  from  the  universe,  Rankine  suggests  that  the  interstellar 
medium  may  be  bounded  on  all  sides  by  empty  space.  On  reach¬ 
ing  these  bounds  the  radiant  heat  would  be  turned  back  and  as 
it  were  piled  up  around  the  edges  of  the  universe,  and  at  last 
would  be  accumulated  in  foci.  Then  if  any  dead  world  moving 
through  space  should  come  into  one  of  these  foci,  it  would  be 
vaporized  and  resolved  into  its  elements,  and  thus  its  energies 
would  be  liberated  from  their  equilibrium  and  restored  to  activity 
in  the  universe.  Claudius,  who  quotes  this  hypothesis,  proceeds 
to  demonstrate  that  it  is  mathematically  impossible.1  The  same 
is  exemplified  in  speculations  respecting  the  ether,  so  tenuous  that 
it  passes  through  all  substances  and  is  not  known  to  retard  the 
motion  of  any  planet,  yet  elastic  and  as  solid  as  adamant.  It 
revives  in  a  new  form  the  old  idea  of  a  crystalline  sphere.  So  in 
all  scientific  speculation  from  age  to  age  we  are  brought  back  to 
the  questions  which  the  mind  must  ask,  but  which  physical  sci¬ 
ence  with  its  matter  and  force  cannot  answer.  And  the  larger 
and  clearer  our  scientific  knowledge  of  matter  and  force,  the  more 
vividly  do  we  feel  ourselves  confronted  by  the  mystery  that  is 
behind  them. 

Materialism  is  a  congeries  of  contradictions.  Perhaps  no  doc¬ 
trine  which  has  had  any  considerable  currency  has  been  marked 
by  this  characteristic  to  an  equal  degree.  Subjective  material¬ 
ism,  that  we  know  only  what  is  perceived  through  the  senses, 
involves  phenomenalism  and  complete  agnosticism ;  objective 
materialism,  that  matter  is  eternal,  implies  that  knowledge  tran¬ 
scends  the  senses,  is  ontological  in  its  beginning,  and  is  the  knowl¬ 
edge  of  eternal,  indestructible,  absolute  Being.  It  propounds,  as 
1  Mechanical  Theory  of  Heat  (8th  Memoir),  p.  291. 


206 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


this  eternal  Being,  matter,  which  in  its  essence  is  finite  and  lim¬ 
ited.  It  holds  that  motor-force  is  transformed  into  thought.  It 
holds  that  mind  is  a  product  and  manifestation  of  matter ;  and  at 
the  same  time  that  matter  is  merely  a  perception  or  idea  of  mind  ; 
and  while  holding  the  latter,  also  holds  that  matter  existed  ages 
before  there  was  a  perceiving  mind.  By  thus  predicating  men¬ 
tal  phenomena  of  matter,  as  well  as  by  propounding  it  as  abso¬ 
lute  Being,  it  changes  the  essential  meaning  of  matter,  and  yet 
continues  to  use  it  in  both  senses  without  discrimination.  It 
teaches  that  matter  and  force  are  the  ultimate  ground  of  the 
universe  and  the  ultimate  explanation  of  all  that  exists,  and  that 
the  whole  history  of  the  universe  is  the  history  of  their  evolu¬ 
tion  ;  at  the  same  time  it  holds  to  the  scientific  theory  which 
implies  that  the  evolution  must  have  an  end  and  must  have  had 
a  beginning ;  if  so  it  must  have  had  an  absolute  beginning,  that 
is,  a  beginning  without  a  cause,  and  it  will  have  an  absolute  end, 
that  is,  it  will  issue  in  an  effect  void  of  all  causative  energy  to 
produce  any  subsequent  change  or  effect.1 

The  necessary  conclusion  is  that  materialism,  as  a  theory  of 
the  universe,  is  not  only  inadequate  to  account  for  it  and  to  in¬ 
terpret  its  significance,  but  on  account  of  its  contradictions  is 
impossible  to  human  thought,  except  by  essentially  changing  the 
accepted  meaning  of  matter. 

1  In  the  Philosophical  Basis  of  Theism,  chap.  xvi.  the  impossibility  of  ac¬ 
counting  for  the  phenomena  either  of  personality  or  of  the  physical  universe  by 
matter  and  force  is  shown;  and  in  chap.  xvii.  the  more  important  materialistic 
objections  to  personality  are  fully  considered.  It  would  be  repetition  to  pur¬ 
sue  the  discussion  further  here.  Pages  408-554. 


CHAPTER  X. 


THE  ABSOLUTE  BEING  AND  THEISM. 

The  words  polytheism  and  monotheism  imply  that  theism  is 
the  genus  of  which  these  are  species.  But  in  fact  the  word  the¬ 
ism  is  commonly  used  as  a  synonym  of  monotheism  ;  leaving  us 
with  no  generic  name  for  the  two. 

The  different  forms  of  belief  in  a  divinity  may  be  classified  in 
four  classes :  — 

Polytheism,  the  belief  in  a  plurality  of  divinities.  In  this  may 
be  included  animism,  the  primitive  belief  of  men  that  natural 
things  were  animated  by  minds  or  souls  like  their  own ;  and  the 
consequent  fetichism,  the  belief  that  any  thing  might  be  the 
shrine  of  a  divinity  to  be  worshiped. 

Ditheism,  the  belief  in  two  Gods,  each  self-existent  and  eternal, 
one  the  author  of  all  good,  the  other  of  all  evil.  This  appears  in 
the  ancient  religion  of  Persia  and  in  Manicheism. 

Monotheism,  the  belief  in  the  one  only  God,  the  energizing 
Reason,  the  eternal  Spirit,  the  personal  God. 

Christian  monotheism,  the  belief  in  the  one  personal  God,  the 
Redeemer  of  the  world  from  sin,  revealed  in  Jesus  the  Christ,  as 
recorded  in  the  Christian  Scriptures. 

These  are  classed  together  as  forms  of  religious  or,  in  its  broad¬ 
est  meaning,  theistic  belief,  because  they  all  recognize  a  divinity 
as  the  object  of  worship  and  service.  The  four  forms  of  atheism 
are  excluded  because  they  recognize  no  divinity.  For  it  is  of 
the  essence  of  religion  that  it  lifts  man  above  his  dependence  on 
the  unconscious  and  necessary  forces  of  nature  into  relation  with 
a  personal  divinity  to  whom  he  may  come  for  guidance  and  help. 

It  is  objected  that  the  ideas  of  the  divinity  in  these  four  types 
of  religious  belief  have  nothing  in  common  but  the  name ;  that 
in  the  lower  forms  of  polytheism  is  no  trace  of  the  absolute  Spirit 
whom  Christians  worship.  The  answer  is  that  the  same  objec¬ 
tion  may  be  made  against  the  identity  of  the  objects  of  physical 
science  which  are  differently  conceived  in  different  ages.  There 
have  been  great  changes  in  man’s  idea  of  the  sun ;  yet  it  is  the 


208 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


same  sun  which  has  been  shining  before  the  eyes  of  men  through 
all  the  ages ;  and  in  certain  particulars  men’s  conceptions  of  it 
have  always  been  the  same.  So  it  is  the  same  absolute  Spirit 
that  has  been  shining  on  the  minds  of  men  through  all  the  ages ; 
and  different  as  their  conceptions  of  him  have  been,  in  certain 
particulars  they  have  been  always  the  same.  In  them  all  we  find 
clear  traces  of  the  absolute  Spirit.  The  divinity  is  always  con¬ 
ceived  more  or  less  clearly  as  an  intelligent  free  person,  like  man, 
and  therein  supernatural ;  and  as  beyond  and  above  man  and 
above  the  world  as  man  knows  it ;  and  therein  a  shadow  of  the 
absolute  lies  on  the  spirit  of  man. 

To  this  it  is  objected  that  this  explanation  is  inconsistent  with 
the  doctrine  that  God  reveals  himself  to  man  and  is  known  by 
man  in  his  experience  of  the  revelation.  If  so,  it  is  asked,  why 
are  there  atheists  ?  Why  any  need  of  exhorting  to  piety  more 
than  to  believe  in  things  seen  and  felt  ?  Why  so  many  different 
ideas  of  God?  Does  any  one  think  the  sun  black  or  square? 
But  we  remember  that  Anaxagoras  once  suggested  that  the  sun 
might  be  as  large  as  the  Peloponnesus,  and  was  arrested  for  the 
bold  assertion  on  the  charge  of  contravening  the  established  dog¬ 
mas  of  religion ;  for  was  not  Apollo  a  god  and  the  sun  his  char¬ 
iot  ?  and  should  it  be  turned  into  a  blazing  mass  of  metal  as  big 
as  the  Peloponnesus  ?  Here  the  scientific  conception  of  the  sun 
was  as  really  imperfect  as  the  conception  of  the  divinity.  The 
conception  of  Anaxagoras  marked  an  advance  in  science  towards 
a  truer  conception  of  the  sun,  which  history  has  always  commem¬ 
orated.  And  he  himself  made  a  notable  advance  in  the  concep¬ 
tion  of  God  as  Reason  energizing  in  the  universe  and  arranging 
and  ordering  it,  an  advance  carried  still  further  by  Plato  and 
Aristotle.  If  men  have  always  known  that  the  sun  is  round  and 
luminous  and  other  facts  respecting  it,  the  recognition  of  which 
has  persisted  in  all  the  progress  of  astronomy,  so  every  worshiper 
of  a  divinity  has  regarded  it  as  an  intelligent  Power  transcending 
him  and  all  that  he  could  touch  or  control,  all  that  constituted  to 
him  the  world  in  which  he  could  act,  and  has  believed  truths  re¬ 
specting  God  which  have  persisted  through  all  the  progress  of 
the  human  mind.  The  revelation  of  God  in  this  respect  is  like 
the  revelation  of  the  universe.  Neither  the  one  nor  the  other  is 
revealed  independently  of  the  faculties  of  man  or  so  as  to  leave 
no  need  of  human  investigation  and  thought.  If  the  universe 
had  been  so  revealed,  man  would  have  missed  the  means  of  edu¬ 
cation,  discipline  and  development,  and  would  have  remained  al- 


THE  ABSOLUTE  BEING  AND  THEISM. 


209 


ways  but  a  grown  up  child.  And  if  God  had  been  so  revealed 
man  would  have  missed  the  means  of  spiritual  discipline  and 
development.  So  Kant  says :  “  If  such  an  enlightenment  were 
given  us  as  we  desire  and  some  think  they  have  found,  that  God 
and  eternity  with  their  awful  majesty  lie  open  unceasingly  be¬ 
fore  the  eyes,  then  the  moral  conduct  of  man,  so  long  as  his 
nature  is  what  it  is,  would  be  changed  into  mere  mechanism, 
in  which  as  in  a  play  of  puppets  all  gesticulate  well,  but  in  the 
figures  there  is  no  life.”  1 

Having  now  the  knowledge  that  the  absolute  Being  exists  and 
may  be  truly  though  partially  known,  the  next  step  in  our  in¬ 
vestigation  must  be  to  show  that  the  absolute  Being  is  absolute 
Reason  energizing  in  the  universe,  the  eternal  Spirit,  the  one 
personal  God. 

It  is  often  assumed  that  it  is  difficult  or  even  impossible  to 
show  that  the  absolute  Being  of  philosophy  is  the  personal  God 
whom  we  worship.  Jacobi  says  that  one  may  be  in  his  head  a 
heathen,  in  his  metaphysical  speculations  an  atheist,  and  in  his 
heart  a  Christian.  Fliigel  cites  Schleiermacher  as  an  example, 
44  who,  with  a  theory  which  is  the  death  of  religion,  was  still 
an  honest  and  hearty  confessor  and  defender  of  Christianity.” 2 
Some  Christian  thinkers  accept  without  inquiry  this  alleged  in¬ 
compatibility  of  the  absolute  of  philosophy  and  the  God  of 
theism,  and  affirm  that  in  philosophical  thought  and  theoretical 
knowledge  there  is  no  basis  for  any  knowledge  of  the  existence 
of  God  or  of  what  he  is  ;  but  that  religious  belief  must  rest  on 
the  ethical  and  spiritual  feelings  alone  and  on  the  word  of  God 
in  the  Bible  attested  by  the  witness  of  the  Spirit.  Professor 
Charles  Hodge  says :  44  If  the  philosophical  notion  of  the  abso¬ 
lute  is  to  decide  every  question  concerning  the  divine  nature,  we 
must  give  up  all  confidence  in  our  apprehensions  of  God  as  an 
object  of  knowledge  ;  ”  and  he  quotes  the  words  of  Strauss : 
44  The  ideas  of  the  absolute  and  of  the  holy  are  incompatible. 
He  who  holds  to  the  former  must  give  up  the  latter,  since 
holiness  implies  relation  ;  and  he  who  holds  the  idea  of  God  as 
holy  must  renounce  the  idea  of  his  being  absolute.”  3  Professor 
W.  D.  Wilson  regards  it  as  not  essential  to  the  defense  of  the¬ 
ism  to  challenge  or  contradict  the  doctrine  of  the  eternal  self¬ 
existence  of  matter,  and  asserts  that  44  if  the  present  order  of 

1  Werke  von  Rosenkranz  lierausgegeben,  viii.  293. 

2  Die  Spekulative  Tkeologie  der  Gegenwart,  pp.  230,  232. 

3  System  of  Theology,  vol.  i.  p.  414. 


210 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


things  had  no  beginning,  Evolution  must  have  produced  a  Su¬ 
preme  Being  long  before  this  time.”  1 

We  are  to  consider  hereafter  the  evidence  that  the  absolute 
Being  is  personal  Spirit  or  Reason,  the  one  only  living  and  true 
God.  Here  I  only  call  attention  to  some  points  which  it  is  im¬ 
portant  to  notice  before  examining  the  evidence  of  the  person¬ 
ality  of  God. 

1.  The  difficulty  of  identifying  the  absolute  Being  of  philoso¬ 
phy  with  the  personal  God  of  theism  arises  in  part  from  the 
falsity  of  the  philosophy  with  which  theism  is  compared  ;  it  pro¬ 
pounds  a  false  idea  of  the  absolute  and  a  false  method  of  ascer¬ 
taining  what  it  is.  These  errors  have  already  been  exposed.  It 
is  with  a  similar  false  philosophy  that  Professor  Royce  holds  that 
if  the  absolute  Being  should  create,  it  must  be  a  perfect  universe 
completed  at  a  stroke  ;  that  once  thus  created,  any  progressive 
development  would  be  impossible ;  that  the  conception  of  a  pro¬ 
gressive  revelation  of  the  absolute  in  the  evolution  of  a  finite  uni¬ 
verse  is  incompatible  with  the  idea  of  the  absolute.  This  in¬ 
volves  a  dilemma  between  two  absurdities  :  Either  the  absolute 
Being  must  create  another  absolute  and  unconditioned  Being,  or 
he  cannot  create  anything  and  thus  is  himself  limited  and  inca¬ 
pable.  His  argument  also  implies  that  we  cannot  know  that  the 
absolute  Being  creates  unless  we  know  how  he  does  it;  that  be¬ 
cause  we  cannot  show  how  a  mind  can  know  an  object  that  is  not 
within  itself  and  not  identical  with  the  mind’s  idea,  therefore  we 
cannot  know  the  object ;  also  that  if  we  cannot  prove  the  reality 
of  knowledge  we  cannot  know  any  thing.2  It  is  not  surprising 
that  theism  cannot  be  reconciled  with  a  philosophy  like  this.  It 
is  impossible  to  reconcile  true  theism  with  false  philosophy.  The 
assumed  metaphysical  ideas  and  principles  on  which  the  German 
pantheism  is  founded  are  not  only  irreconcilable  with  the  knowl¬ 
edge  that  the  absolute  is  the  personal  God,  but,  as  has  been 
shown,  they  are  equally  irreconcilable  with  the  knowledge  of 
any  thing.  If  the  New-Kantians  teach  that  the  knowledge  of  God 
must  be  held  on  the  ground  of  moral  feelings  and  independent 
of  metaphysics,  it  is  equally  true  that  all  knowledge,  popular  and 
scientific,  must  be  held  in  equal  independence  of  the  false  and 
pantheistic  metaphysics  to  which  the  New-Kantians  refer. 

With  metaphysics  and  philosophy  vitiated  by  these  and  similar 
errors,  it  is  impossible  to  attain  the  knowledge  that  the  absolute, 

1  Foundations  of  Religious  Belief,  pp.  62-65. 

2  Religious  Aspect  of  Philosophy,  pp.  258,  263,  274,  275,  303. 


THE  ABSOLUTE  BEING  AND  THEISM. 


211 


as  thus  falsely  conceived,  is  the  personal  God.  The  absolute  is 
thus  an  illusion  in  which  all  reality  and  all  knowledge  are  swal¬ 
lowed  up.  In  these  and  similar  cases,  we  cannot  identify  the 
God  of  theism  with  the  absolute  Being  of  philosophy,  because 
we  compare  true  theism  with  false  philosophy. 

But  if  we  begin  with  the  ideas  and  principles  of  a  true  phi¬ 
losophy,  there  is  no  a  priori  impossibility  that  the  absolute  be  a 
personal  Spirit  or  Reason  energizing,  and  nothing  to  invalidate 
the  evidence  that  it  is  so. 

2.  The  difficulty  in  identifying  the  absolute  of  philosophy  with 
the  God  of  theism  arises  in  part  from  false  conceptions  of  what 
the  God  of  theism  is.  Non-theistic  thinkers  commonly  assume 
that  the  theistic  conception  is  that  God  created  the  universe, 
complete  and  finished,  at  a  stroke,  and,  ever  since,  his  action  in 
it  and  his  revelation  of  himself  have  been  only  in  capricious  and 
miraculous  interference  with  its  laws ;  as  Carlyle  puts  it :  44  An 
absentee  God,  sitting  idle  ever  since  the  first  sabbath  at  the  out¬ 
side  of  the  universe  and  seeing  it  go.”  Whereas  in  truth  theism 
recognizes  the  absolute  Being  as  at  once  distinguished  from  and 
transcending  the  universe  and  immanent  in  it.  It  solves  the 
great  problem  of  the  transcendence  and  the  immanence  by  rec¬ 
ognizing  the  absolute  Being  as  the  absolute  Reason  energizing 
in  the  universe  and  progressively  realizing  in  the  finite  the  ideal 
of  all  that  is  true,  right,  perfect  and  good  as  it  is  archetypal  and 
eternal  in  the  divine  mind.  Thus  the  absolute  Spirit  is  evermore 
revealing  himself  by  expressing  the  thought  of  his  eternal  wis¬ 
dom  and  love  in  the  finite  creation.  And  the  revelation  must  be 
ever  progressive,  and  never  complete  and  finished  at  any  point 
of  time.  The  infinite  can  never  be  fully  expressed  and  revealed 
in  the  finite. 

The  difficulty,  however,  does  not  arise  wholly  from  erroneous 
conceptions  of  theism  on  the  part  of  its  opponents,  but  also  in 
part  from  errors  on  the  part  of  theists.  Theologians  have  con¬ 
ceived  of  the  universe  as  completed  and  finished  at  the  time  of 
its  creation.  This  in  fact  became  a  common  conception  of  Chris¬ 
tian  theology.  It  is  noticeable  that  from  time  to  time  in  the 
history  of  the  Church  a  pantheistic  type  of  thought  has  made  its 
appearance.  In  many  of  these  cases,  what  Dr.  Hunt  and  others 
call  pantheism  is  no  more  than  an  attempt  to  break  away  from 
the  conception  of  the  universe  as  a  rigid  and  finished  mechanism 
with  God  outside  of  it,  and  to  return  to  the  conception  of  God  as 
immanent  in  it  and  progressively  revealing  himself  in  the  realiza- 


212 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


tion  of  the  archetypal  ideas  of  the  eternal  and  universal  Reason, 
both  in  the  physical  system  and  in  the  spiritual ;  in  the  latter 
by  the  presence  of  his  Spirit  and  the  progressive  growth  of  his 
kingdom  of  righteousness  through  the  redemption  in  Christ. 
Even  now  in  the  general  return  to  the  conception  of  God  as  at 
once  transcendent  and  immanent,  some  theologians,  mistaking 
the  significance  of  the  movement,  are  losing  their  way  and  are 
moving  towards  pantheistic  ideas.  It  is  important  to  guard 
against  this  error.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  not  less  important 
to  know  that  the  doctrine  of  God’s  transcendence  of  the  universe 
and  his  immanence  in  it  is  a  distinctive  doctrine  of  theism.  To 
call  it  Christian  pantheism  is  a  gross  misrepresentation.  So  far 
is  it  from  pantheism  that  it  is  incompatible  with  pantheism. 
The  latter,  by  identifying  the  absolute  with  the  universe,  ex¬ 
cludes  both  the  transcendence  and  the  immanence,  and  reduces 
the  absolute  and  the  universe  in  their  identity  to  a  blind  and 
unknowable  somewhat,  evolving  necessarily  without  freedom  or 
personality,  without  conscious  intelligence  or  reasonable  end  or 
aim. 

Theism,  while  claiming  a  positive  knowledge  of  the  absolute 
Being  and  of  what  it  is,  affirms  that  the  knowledge  is  not  ade¬ 
quate  and  complete.  Mystery  must  always  lie  all  along  the  line 
where  the  absolute  energizes  in  the  finite,  and  the  revelation  of 
the  absolute  therein  must  at  every  point  of  time  be  incomplete. 
Hence  tlieists  do  not  profess  to  define  how  God  creates  the  uni¬ 
verse  or  energizes  in  it.  And  different  minds  may  picture  or 
symbolize  the  action  in  different  ways.  But  this  must  not  be 
confounded  with  pantheism.  The  thought  remains  theistic  and 
excludes  pantheism,  so  long  as  it  recognizes  men  as  rational,  free, 
personal  beings  ;  and  also  recognizes  the  absolute  Being  as  dis¬ 
tinct  from  and  transcending  the  universe,  as  conscious  personal 
Spirit  known  positively  though  inadequately,  as  in  the  likeness 
of  human  reason,  however  transcending  it,  and  as  progressively 
realizing  in  the  universe  rational  ideals  and  ends. 

It  may  be  added  that  agnosticism,  pantheism  and  materialism 
arise  in  part  from  unwarrantably  limiting  knowledge  to  the 
conceivable  and  denying  creation  and  God’s  transcendence  and 
immanence  because  they  cannot  be  pictured  in  the  imagination. 

3.  A  third  source  of  the  difficulty  in  identifying  the  God  of 
theism  with  the  absolute  of  philosophy  is  found  in  false  ideas  of 
personality. 

The  objection  is  that  personality,  if  predicated  of  the  absolute 


THE  ABSOLUTE  BEING  AND  THEISM. 


218 


Being,  would  imply  limitation.  It  has  already  been  shown  that 
this  objection  is  founded  on  a  false  idea  of  the  absolute ;  that  if 
valid  it  would  equally  prove  that  the  absolute,  as  thus  falsely 
conceived,  would  be  limited  by  predicating  of  it  power  or  any 
other  attribute,  by  affirming  that  it  is  being,  and  even  by  affirm¬ 
ing  that  it  is  the  absolute  or  unconditioned  and  thus  distinguish¬ 
ing  it  from  the  finite.  It  assumes  that  determinateness  is  in  its 
essence  limitation.  But  we  have  seen  that  determinateness  is  of 
the  essence  of  being  ;  that  the  indeterminate  is  no  being ;  it  is 
not  even  nothing  as  distinguished  from  being,  nor  being  as  dis¬ 
tinguished  from  nothing.  And  we  have  seen  that  the  more  de¬ 
terminate  a  being  is,  that  is,  the  more  the  powers  and  attributes 
characterizing  it,  the  greater  the  being.  If  God  is  indeterminate 
he  is  void  of  every  attribute  by  which  it  is  possible  to  think  of 
him.  The  objection  implies  that  he  is  entirely  unknowable.  It 
would  require  that  the  absolute  be  at  once  infinite  and  finite, 
conditioned  and  unconditioned,  perfect  and  imperfect,  good  and 
evil,  mind  and  matter,  personal  and  impersonal,  being  and  noth¬ 
ing.  The  absolute  thus  becomes  a  mere  zero  or  symbol  of  the 
cessation  of  thought.  It  is  no  longer  the  ground  of  all  things 
but,  as  the  Germans  would  say,  the  Abgrund ,  the  abyss  in  which 
all  thought,  all  intelligence  and  all  reality  are  swallowed  up. 
The  fact  that  God  is  the  absolute  implies  that  he  is  the  fulness 
of  all  perfection.  As  the  unconditioned  he  must  be  the  all-con¬ 
ditioning  ;  as  such  in  him  must  be  all  the  potencies  which  ac¬ 
count  for  the  universe. 

In  addition  to  this,  the  objection  that  the  absolute  cannot  be 
a  person  rests  on  a  false  idea  of  personality. 

It  falsely  assumes  that  the  self  or  ego  as  known  in  conscious¬ 
ness  is  merely  a  series  of  sensations  or  impressions ;  or  it  assumes 
that  the  consciousness  of  self  is  the  consciousness  only  of  a  nega¬ 
tion  ;  or  it  gives  some  other  definition  which  leaves  out  the  es¬ 
sence  of  personality.  As  thus  falsely  defined  personality  cannot 
be  predicated  of  the  absolute  Being.  But  a  person  is  a  rational 
free  being  conscious  of  self  as  persisting,  one  and  the  same, 
through  all  changes.  Personality  thus  defined  is  not  incompat¬ 
ible  with  the  true  absolute.  Persistence  in  unity  and  identity 
through  all  changes  is  central  in  the  idea  of  the  absolute  Being. 
Here  in  the  finite  person  is  an  element  not  only  compatible  with 
the  absolute  but  essential  to  it.  The  centre  of  a  circle  remains 
unchanged  so  long  as  the  circle  remains,  however  the  circum¬ 
ference  may  be  enlarged.  This  central  element  of  personality 


214 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


must  remain  unchanged  whatever  limitations  are  removed. 
Otherwise  all  substantiality  of  being  disappears,  and  the  abso¬ 
lute  is  totally  lost  in  nonentity. 

In  the  next  place,  the  attributes  of  personality  are  in  their 
essence  such  as  may  be  positive  attributes  of  the  absolute  Be¬ 
ing.  The  principles  and  laws  of  reason  are  universal  and  un¬ 
conditioned  ;  they  condition  everything,  they  are  conditioned  by 
nothing  ;  they  are  unlimited  in  time  and  space,  unmeasurable 
in  quantity ;  the  same  in  all  times  and  all  places  ;  power  can 
neither  create  nor  annul  them.  The  will  is  free  in  the  sense 
that  it  is  a  power  which  determines  itself  in  the  light  of  rea¬ 
son,  and  is  thus  self-directive  and  self-exertive.  Freedom  in  its 
essence  is  exemption  from  conditions  and  limitations.  In  his 
rational  free  will  man  is  above  nature,  a  supernatural  being ; 
and  so  far  he  is  exempt  from  necessary  conditions  and  limita¬ 
tions  and  is  free.  The  absolute  Being,  exempt  from  all  neces¬ 
sary  conditions  and  limitations,  must  be  himself  the  absolute 
and  universal  Reason  ;  and  luminous  with  its  light,  must  be 
self-directive,  self-exertive  and  free.  And  a  person’s  conscious¬ 
ness  of  self  is  not  a  limitation.  On  the  contrary,  consciousness 
marks  a  superior  order  of  beings,  and  its  absence  would  be  a 
limitation  and  an  imperfection.  It  has  been  already  shown  that 
if  the  absolute  Being  first  comes  to  consciousness  in  man,  then 
it  is  itself  developed  in  time  from  the  less  to  the  greater,  and 
man  is  superior  to  the  absolute  previously  unconscious  and  unde¬ 
veloped.  A  babe  is  unconscious  of  its  spiritual  capacities  and 
is  gradually  developed  to  the  knowledge  of  itself  and  the  world.  *■ 
But  here  is  propounded,  as  philosophy,  the  absurdity  that  the 
absolute  Being,  like  the  finite  babe,  is  gradually  developed  in 
time  till  it  attains  to  its  highest  in  man,  and  then  continues 
to  acquire  knowledge  of  itself  and  of  the  world  as  the  years 
roll  on. 

Thus  it  is  evident  that  personality  in  its  true  significance  is 
compatible  with  the  true  absolute,  and  that  its  essential  attri¬ 
butes  must  be  attributes  of  the  absolute  Being. 

Accordingly,  in  the  exercise  of  man’s  personal  powers  are  inti¬ 
mations  and  shadowings  that  he  is  in  the  likeness  of  God.  In 
his  self-consciousness  he  is  at  once  the  subject  and  object  of  his 
own  knowledge  ;  in  his  free  will  he  determines  his  action  and 
character,  and  is  at  once  the  subject  and  object  of  his  own  free 
energy.  He  can  complete  within  himself  the  circle  of  object 
and  subject  both  in  intellectual  and  efficient  action.  Thus  in 
his  personality  he  is  self-contained. 


THE  ABSOLUTE  BEING  AND  THEISM.  215 

Another  false  assumption  is  that  the  finiteness  of  the  human 
person  is  of  the  essence  of  personality. 

Hartmann,  Pfleiderer  and  others  hold  that  God  is  Spirit  or 
Reason,  but  is  not  a  person.  Here  they  change  the  essential 
meaning  of  personality.  They  call  the  absolute  Being  Spirit 
and  predicate  of  it  rationality  and  freedom,  essential  attributes 
of  personality ;  they  then  deny  its  conscious  personality,  be¬ 
cause,  as  they  think,  this  would  be  a  limitation.  This  implies 
that  personality  essentially  consists  of  dependence  and  of  lim¬ 
itation  in  time,  space  and  quantity.  They  fail  to  distinguish 
between  personality  and  its  limitations.  The  limitation  is  not 
of  the  essence  of  personality,  but  its  accident.  The  objection 
confounds  quality  or  power  with  quantity.  The  predication  of 
personality  carries  over  to  the  absolute  only  the  positive  prop¬ 
erties  of  a  person,  conscious  reason,  self-determining  power, 
unity  and  identity,  not  his  accidental  limitations.  It  must  be 
added  that  consciousness  is  essential  to  intelligence  and  free¬ 
dom.  Where  there  is  no  consciousness  there  can  be  no  knowl¬ 
edge,  therefore  no  energy  intelligently  and  freely  exerted  and 
directed.  Thus  we  have  the  absolute  Being  acting  in  the  uni¬ 
verse  blindly  and  necessarily,  without  intelligence  or  freedom, 
without  wisdom  or  love.  And  here  again  the  absolute  Being  is 
recognized  as  undeveloped  and  imperfect ;  and  this  conception 
of  God  is  found  to  be  undistinguishable  from  pantheism. 

Kant  and  J.  G.  Fichte  object  that  we  cannot  predicate  person¬ 
ality  of  the  Absolute,  because  we  know  personality  only  under 
the  limitations  of  the  finite.  This  objection  is  equally  valid 
against  predicating  power,  existence  or  any  reality  of  the  abso¬ 
lute,  since,  in  the  same  sense,  we  know  these  also  only  under 
the  limits  of  the  finite.  In  fact,  in  the  very  idea  of  the  finite, 
man  has  already  the  idea  of  the  infinite,  and  in  the  idea  of  de¬ 
pendence  he  has  the  idea  of  the  independent  and  absolute.  In 
these  ideas  his  thought  is  already  active  in  that  transcendent 
sphere.  And  in  our  consciousness  of  self  we  have  conscious¬ 
ness  of  reason  participating  in  the  principles  of  Reason  supreme 
and  universal,  and  consciousness  of  free  will  acting  under  law 
of  supreme  and  universal  obligation. 

Spencer  and  the  agnostics  who  follow  him  push  their  objection 
farther.  Because  there  can  be  but  one  absolute  Being,  it  can¬ 
not  be  classed  with  any  other  ;  therefore  it  cannot  be  known ; 
and  because  it  cannot  be  known  it  cannot  be  a  person.  This 
reasoning  is  only  an  example  of  the  common  error  substituting 


216 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


general  notions  and  abstractions  for  real  concrete  beings.  It 
belongs  to  that  type  of  thought  which  proceeds  from  the  univer¬ 
sal  to  the  particular,  and  consists  in  analyzing  general  notions. 
It  is  a  survival  of  mediaeval  scholasticism,  instances  of  which  are 
occasionally  found  in  Mr.  Spencer’s  writings.  It  is  only  in  such 
a  type  of  thought  that  this  objection  has  force.  Scientific  knowl¬ 
edge  begins  with  the  individual  and  proceeds  to  the  class.  Of 
course  it  must  know  the  individual  before  it  can  know  the  class. 
In  classifying,  as  individuals  are  found  to  be  more  and  more 
determinate,  the  number  included  in  a  species  becomes  less. 
When  we  come  to  God,  as  the  absolute  Being,  he  stands  alone. 
But  in  passing  from  a  finite  or  limited  reality  to  the  unlim¬ 
ited,  we  do  not  drop  out  the  reality  and  retain  only  the  empty 
denial  of  limitation.  An  unlimited  power  does  not  cease  to 
be  a  power;  it  is  power  unlimited.  No  more  does  personality 
cease  if  it  is  unconditioned  personality.  So  J.  S.  Mill  says: 
a  Any  thing  carried  to  the  infinite  must  have  all  the  proper¬ 
ties  of  the  same  thing  as  finite,  except  such  as  depend  on  the 
finiteness. ”  He  exemplifies  by  infinite  space  that  it  does  not 
cease  to  be  space,  and  infinite  goodness  that  it  does  not  cease 
to  be  goodness.1 

4.  Man’s  knowledge  of  the  absolute  Being  as  the  personal 
God  is  real  and  positive,  but  incomplete. 

Theism  makes  no  pretension  to  the  complete  knowledge  of 
God  ;  but  it  rightly  insists  that,  though  the  knowledge  of  him 
is  incomplete,  it  is  real  and  positive ;  not  of  a  part  of  God, 
for  God  has  no  parts,  but  of  him ,  the  one  only  living  and  per¬ 
sonal  God. 

Accordingly  it  concedes  to  the  agnostic  that  in  some  respects 
the  knowledge  of  God  can  be  expressed  only  as  a  negation. 
This  is  plain  from  the  distinction  already  pointed  out  between 
the  positive  powers  of  a  being  and  their  limitation.  In  a  steam- 
engine  of  forty  horse-power  the  power  is  one  thing,  the  limita¬ 
tion  of  the  quantity  of  that  power  is  an  entirely  different  thing. 
The  power  is  the  positive  quality  in  which  the  engine  is  re¬ 
vealed  ;  the  limitation  is  a  mere  indication  of  quantity,  which 
aside  from  the  power  is  empty  of  all  significance,  an  empty 
form  of  thought.  In  like  manner  we  know  God  as  a  personal 
being  endowed  with  rational,  self-determining  power  energizing 
always  in  harmony  with  reason  ;  and  we  know  him  as  absolute 
being  unconditioned  by  dependence  on  any  other,  and  his  powers 

1  Exam,  of  Hamilton,  vol.  i.  p.  129. 


THE  ABSOLUTE  BEING  AND  THEISM. 


217 


unlimited  in  time,  space  or  quantity.  The  former  are  the  posi¬ 
tive  attributes  of  his  being;  the  latter  are  merely  the  denial 
of  dependence  and  limitation,  empty  forms  of  thought  except  as 
they  refer  to  the  positive  powers.  Of  the  former  our  knowledge 
is  positive,  because  we  know  reason,  free  will,  personality  in  our¬ 
selves  ;  of  the  latter  our  knowledge  may  be  called  negative,  be¬ 
cause  it  can  be  expressed  only  by  a  negation.  The  knowledge 
of  the  absolute  Being  and  its  powers  is  positive  ;  it  is  negative 
only  in  form.  Hence  the  attributes  of  God  are  properly  classified 
as  positive,  or  the  attributes  included  in  personality,  and  nega¬ 
tive,  or  the  attributes  defined  by  the  negation  of  dependence,  and 
of  limitation  in  time,  space  and  quantity.  Thus  our  knowledge 
of  God,  the  absolute  Being,  is  positive  and  real,  although  it  is  in¬ 
complete. 

Sir  William  Hamilton,  on  the  contrary,  objects  that  because 
our  knowledge  of  infinitude  or  illimitation  can  be  expressed  only 
by  negation,  therefore  all  our  knowledge  of  God  is  negative,  or, 
what  is  the  same,  no  knowledge.  Malebranche  comes  to  a  sim¬ 
ilar  conclusion  as  to  the  spiritual  attributes  of  God  :  “We  ought 
not  to  call  God  a  Spirit  to  express  positively  what  he  is,  but 
rather  to  signify  only  that  he  is  not  matter.  .  .  .  His  true  name 
is  He  that  is  ;  or,  in  other  words,  being  without  restriction,  All¬ 
being,  the  being  infinite  and  universal.” 1  The  error  arises  from 
overlooking  the  distinction  of  the  positive  powers  of  a  being  and 
their  limitation.  The  denial  of  dependence  and  limitation  does 
not  annul  the  being  and  powers  which  are  independent  and 
unlimited.  Fenelon  insists  that  it  is  the  finite  which  implies 
negation ;  that  the  infinite  implies  affirmation.2  And  Trendelen¬ 
burg  says  the  same  :  “  The  Absolute  is  not  a  negative  notion. 
We  reach  it  by  a  negative  process  ;  we  remove  everything  which 
limits  it.  But  the  notion  itself  is  positive,  and  if  it  is  correctly 
thought  is  the  most  positive  of  all  notions,  because  not  limited.”  3 

1  Recherche  de  la  Verite,  bk.  iii.  chap.  9. 

2  De  l’Existence  et  des  Attributs  de  Dieu,  part  ii.  preuve  ii. 

8  Professor  Max  Muller  says  :  “  The  true  idea  of  the  infinite  is  not  a  nega¬ 
tion  nor  a  modification  of  any  other  idea.  The  finite,  on  the  contrary,  is  in 
reality  the  limitation  or  modification  of  the  infinite,  nor  is  it  possible,  if  we 
reason  in  good  earnest,  to  conceive  of  the  finite  in  any  other  sense  than  as 
the  shadow  of  the  infinite.’ ’  He  adds  a  quotation  from  Roger  Bacon  :  “It  is 
called  infinite  not  by  negation  of  limits  of  quantity,  but  by  negation  of  imper¬ 
fection  and  non-being.”  — Led.  on  Language ,  Second  Series,  pp.  596,  597. 

Descartes  denies  that  the  infinite  is  a  negative  idea  made  up  by  negation 
of  finiteness  :  “  The  idea  of  the  infinite  is  very  clear  and  very  distinct,  since 


218 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


And  it  is  true  that  if  one  affirms  a  limitation  he  denies  the  ex¬ 
istence  of  the  power  beyond  the  limit.  On  the  contrary,  if  he 
affirms  illimitation  he  denies  limitation,  and  this  denial  is  the 
negation  of  a  negation,  and  affirms  the  existence  of  the  power 
beyond  all  limits.  So  immortality  is  in  form  a  negative,  but  in 
fact  it  is  the  affirmation  of  life  that  never  ends  ;  and  indepen¬ 
dence  is  negative  in  form,  but  in  fact  it  is  the  affirmation  of  self- 
sustaining  power. 

Another  error  often  implied  in  the  objection  to  a  positive  but 
incomplete  knowledge  of  the  absolute,  consists  in  hypostasizing 
the  words  finite  and  infinite,  conditioned  and  unconditioned,  as  if 
they  meant  beings  instead  of  mere  limitation  or  illimitation  of  a 
being.  The  agnostic  speaks  of  the  absolute  as  if  it  were  God, 
instead  of  being  a  mere  adjective  which  denies  all  conditions  and 
limitations.  Of  an  absolute  abstracted  from  being  we  certainly 
have  no  positive  conception  ;  we  define  it  by  negation.  When 
this  abstraction  of  absoluteness  is  substituted  for  the  absolute 
Being,  it  is  found  to  be  only  a  tangle  of  negations  and  contra¬ 
dictions. 

The  objection  is  valid  also  against  the  false  idea  of  the  abso¬ 
lute  as  the  subject  of  all  contradictory  attributes.  So  Hegel  asks, 
“  What  kind  of  an  absolute  is  that  which  does  not  contain  in  it¬ 
self  all  that  is  actual,  even  evil  included  ?  ”  And  Mansel  ac¬ 
cepts  the  conclusion  as  supported  by  unassailable  reasoning.1  But 
the  reasoning  rests  on  the  false  and  even  absurd  idea  that  the 
absolute  is  simply  the  sum  total  of  all  things.  They  who  accept 
this  conclusion  and  yet  believe  that  the  absolute  exists,  must  as¬ 
sume  that  the  law  that  two  contradictory  principles  cannot  both 
be  true  of  the  same  object,  is  not  applicable  to  the  absolute. 
Thus,  as  J.  S.  Mill  rightly  infers,  they  extinguish  all  reasoning 
respecting  the  absolute  by  a  reduction  ad  absurdissimum .2  Such 
an  absolute  would  be  not  only  unknowable,  but  a  congeries  of 
contradictions.  Of  such  a  God  we  may  adopt  the  words  of  a 
philosopher  a  thousand  years  ago :  u  Deus  ipse  nescit  se,  quid 
est,  quia  non  est  quid.” 

W e  therefore  conclude  that  the  absolute  Being  cannot  be  known 

all  which  my  mind  clearly  and  distinctly  conceives  as  true  and  real  is  wholly 
wrapped  up  and  contained  in  this  idea.  ...  I  plainly  see  that  there  is  more 
reality  in  an  infinite  substance  than  in  a  finite  one,  since  to  conceive  the  latter 
we  must  take  away  something  from  our  idea  of  the  former  and  so  far  limit 
and  restrict  it.  Hence  in  some  way  my  mind  must  conceive  the  infinite  before 
it  can  have  any  notion  of  the  finite.” 

1  Limits  of  Religious  Thought,  p.  76. 

2  Exam,  of  Hamilton,  vol.  i.  pp.  60,  61. 


THE  ABSOLUTE  BEING  AND  THEISM. 


219 


completely  by  the  finite  mind,  whether  man  or  angel,  whether  in 
this  life  or  through  everlasting  ages  in  the  life  to  come.  On  the 
other  hand  we  affirm  with  equal  decisiveness  that  the  finite  mind 
has  positive  and  real  knowledge  of  God.  And  the  finite  spirit 
may  be  “increasing  in  the  knowledge  of  God”  forever.  Chris¬ 
tian  writers  sometimes  make  admissions  in  which  unawares  they 
affirm  sheer  agnosticism.  Richard  Hooker  says :  “  Though  to 
know  him  be  life,  and  joy  to  make  mention  of  his  name,  yet  our 
soundest  knowledge  is  to  know  that  we  know  him  not  as  indeed 
he  is,  neither  can  know  him  ;  and  our  safest  eloquence  is  our 
silence,  whereby  we  confess  without  confession  that  his  glory  is 
inexplicable,  his  greatness  beyond  our  capacity  and  reach.”  With 
all  its  affluence  of  diction  this  is  a  denial  that  man  has  any 
knowledge  of  God  as  he  is.1 

Christian  poetry  and  devotion  may  say  with  Thomson :  — 

“  But  I  lose 

Myself  in  him,  in  Light  ineffable ; 

Come  then  expressive  silence,  muse  his  praise.” 

But  it  is  said,  not  by  logic  and  philosophy,  not  in  conscious  igno¬ 
rance  of  God,  but  at  the  summit  of  knowledge  of  him  already 
attained,  in  the  vision  of  his  perfections  already  revealed,  in  the 
loftiest  flight  of  devotion  looking  beyond  the  revealed  perfection 
on  the  glory  that  is  unspeakable,  that  dazzles  and  blinds  with 
excess  of  light. 

5.  Theism  claims  that  the  absolute  Being  is  the  all-condition¬ 
ing  as  well  as  the  unconditioned.  If  the  absolute  is  a  being  and 
not  a  mere  abstraction  of  a  negation,  the  fact  that  it  is  uncondi¬ 
tioned  implies  that  it  is  the  all-conditioning.  The  absolute  Being, 
as  the  ultimate  ground  of  the  universe  and  accounting  for  it  and 
all  that  is  in  it,  cannot  be  included  in  the  universe  and  must  con¬ 
dition  it  and  all  in  it.  And  theism  insists  that  the  unconditioned 
and  all-conditioning  Being  must  be  the  absolute,  personal,  ener¬ 
gizing  Reason,  because  no  other  can  fill  the  positive  idea  of  the 
absolute  as  the  all-conditioning  and  account  for  the  universe. 

Thus  we  have  the  idea  of  the  absolute  as  the  original,  eternal 
Power  that  has  given  being  to  the  universe,  and  the  immanent 
Power  that  sustains,  energizes  and  directs  its  ongoing  ;  the  source 
of  life  which  subordinates  the  energies  of  all  the  parts  to  the 
realizing  of  the  end  of  the  whole ;  the  eternal  and  universal  Rea- 

1  Augustine  says  :  “  Deus  .  .  .  sine  qualitate  bonus,  sine  quantitate  mag- 
nus,  sine  indigentia  creator,  sine  situ  praesens,  sine  habitu  omnia  continens, 
sine  loco  ubique  totus,  sine  tempore  sempiternus,  sine  ulla  mutatione  muta- 
bilia  faciens,  nihilque  patiens.”  —  De  Trinitate ,  v.  i.  2. 


220 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


son,  in  which  the  universe  lies  eternal  and  archetypal  in  its  prin¬ 
ciples,  laws,  ideals  and  ends  ;  the  absolute  Will  in  harmony  with 
reason  and  ever  progressively  realizing  its  eternal  and  archetypal 
ideas  and  expressing  in  finite  things  its  perfect  wisdom  and  love ; 
and  yet  not  plural,  but  the  one  indivisible  Spirit,  at  once  Reason 
and  Will,  living  and  energizing  in  wisdom  and  love.  Thus 
theism  explains  the  possibility  of  apprehending  the  universe  in 
thought  because  it  is  the  expression  of  archetypal  thought,  and 
so  can  be  translated  back  into  thought  and  the  things  in  it 
apprehended  in  their  intellectual  equivalents.  Hence  it  exists  as 
a  cosmos  and  may  be  known  in  systems  of  science.  Hence  it  is 
progressively  realizing  higher  ends  and  we  find  in  it  the  strata  of 
its  progress  in  the  past.  We  find  in  the  universe  a  sphere  of 
force  ;  and  because  a  stronger  force  must  always  prevail  over  a 
weaker,  we  find  in  this  sphere  the  law  of  the  survival  of  the 
fittest,  the  strong  overpowers  and  crowds  out  the  weak.  We 
find  in  it  also  the  organic  sphere,  vegetable  and  animal,  in  which 
is  the  higher  law  that  all  the  parts  must  act  in  subordination  to 
realizing  the  idea  of  the  whole  —  homologous  with  the  law  of 
love.  We  find  in  it  personal  beings  in  a  rational  system  under 
the  law  of  love.  The  unity  of  these  wondrous  spheres  of  mech¬ 
anism,  life  and  spirit  in  one  reasonable,  scientific  and  harmonious 
system  is  thinkable  only  in  their  common  relation  to  God,  the 
absolute  Reason,  the  ground  and  support  of  the  universe,  ener¬ 
gizing  and  directing  in  all.  In  him  alone  the  antitheses  of 
knowledge  and  being,  thought  and  things,  spirit  and  matter,  infi¬ 
nite  and  finite  find  their  synthesis  and  unity  in  the  two  systems  of 
nature  and  spirit  in  one  all-comprehending  system,  progressively 
realizing  in  finite  beings  the  truths,  laws,  ideals  and  ends  of  per¬ 
fect  wisdom  and  love.  In  this  alone  do  we  find  the  explanation 
of  man.  The  contradictions  in  his  being  have  been  the  theme  of 
both  philosophers  and  poets.  Pascal’s  vivid  presentation  of  them 
is  famous  and  familiar.  Pope  has  set  them  forth  in  verse  :  — 

“  Chaos  of  thought  and  passion  all  confused, 

Still  by  himself  abused  or  disabused; 

In  doubt  his  mind  or  body  to  prefer, 

Born  but  to  die  and  reasoning  but  to  err ; 

Created  half  to  rise  and  half  to  fall, 

Great  lord  of  all  things,  yet  a  prey  to  all; 

Sole  judge  of  truth,  in  endless  error  hurled; 

The  glory,  jest  and  riddle  of  the  world.” 

The  explanation  is  found  only  when  we  know  man  as  participat¬ 
ing  in  the  systems  both  of  nature  and  of  spirit,  the  object  of 


THE  ABSOLUTE  BEING  AND  THEISM. 


221 


God’s  care,  redeeming  him  from  sin  and  from  submersion  in  the 
life  of  nature  to  the  spiritual  life  of  faith  in  God  and  communion 
with  him,  and  to  participation  in  the  divine  life  of  love  and  in 
the  divine  work  of  delivering  men  from  sin  and  evil. 

Agnosticism  fixes  an  impassable  gulf  between  the  absolute  and 
the  finite.  We  see  the  gulf  and  know  that  there  is  a  somewhat 
beyond  it ;  but  thought  itself  cannot  pass  over  to  get  even  a 
glimpse  of  what  the  somewhat  is.  Pantheism  attempts  to  bridge 
the  gulf  by  the  one  only  substance,  or  the  all,  or  the  universal, 
or  some  other  entity.  But  all  its  attempts  fail.  Either  the  finite 
is  lost  in  the  absolute,  or  the  absolute  is  lost  in  the  finite,  or  the 
bridge  proves  to  be  a  bridge  of  words  which  breaks  down  under 
the  first  reality  which  attempts  to  cross  on  it,  and  the  gulf  between 
the  two  is  left  impassable  ;  the  Spirit  of  God  cannot  come  to 
the  spirit  of  man,  nor  the  spirit  of  man  to  the  Spirit  of  God. 
The  synthesis  of  the  two  in  a  unity  satisfying  all  the  demands  of 
thought  is  found  only  when  the  absolute  Being  is  known  as  the 
energizing  Reason,  the  eternal  Spirit  revealing  himself,  through 
all  his  works  and  in  the  human  consciousness,  to  the  kindred  spirit 
of  man. 

6.  Atheism  is  not  in  agreement  with  itself,  and  in  each  of  its 
forms  is  in  some  particulars  in  agreement  with  theism. 

Atheism  is  not  a  self-consistent  unity.  Its  four  forms  are  not 
a  solid  phalanx  against  theism,  but  are  in  conflict  with  each  other. 
Each  rejects  the  conclusions  and  refutes  the  arguments  of  each  of 
the  others.  Hence  in  controversy  with  theism  the  same  objector 
cannot  in  consistency  with  himself  use  indiscriminately  the  objec¬ 
tions  of  all  the  four ;  although  this  is  often  done.  Each  of  them 
also  fails  to  give  any  reasonable  explanation  of  the  universe  or 
any  satisfactory  answer  to  the  necessary  and  ultimate  questions 
of  the  reason.  To  each  also  we  may  apply  Mr.  Huxley’s  warn¬ 
ing  as  to  his  own  speculations  in  the  Physical  Basis  of  Life : 
“  I  bid  you  beware  that  in  accepting  these  conclusions  you  are 
placing  your  feet  on  the  first  rung  of  a  ladder  which  in  most  peo¬ 
ple’s  estimation  is  the  reverse  of  that  of  Jacob  and  leads  to  the 
antipodes  of  heaven.”  They  agree  only  in  erring  from  the  truth 
and  in  their  failure  to  satisfy  either  the  intellect  or  the  heart. 
Each  proclaims  the  deviation  of  the  others  while  never  finding 
the  path  of  truth  itself.1 

1  “  Velut  silvis,  ubi  passim 
Palantes  error  certo  de  tramite  pellit ; 

Ille  sinistrorsum,  hie  dextrorsum  abit;  unus  utrique 

Error,  sed  variis  illudit  partibus.”  —  Horace,  Sat.  lib.  ii.  3,  48-51. 


222 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


Atheism  in  each  of  its  forms  is  in  some  particulars  in  agree¬ 
ment  with  theism. 

The  extreme  positivism  of  Comte,  which  is  at  the  farthest 
remove  from  theism,  may  be  supposed  to  have  nothing  in  com¬ 
mon  with  it.  It  renounces  all  attempt  to  give  a  theoretical  or 
philosophical  construction  of  the  universe  and  regards  “the  inves¬ 
tigation  of  what  are  called  causes,  whether  primal  or  final,  as  for 
us  absolutely  inaccessible  and  void  of  meaning.”  Yet  positivism 
agrees  with  theism  in  recognizing  the  necessity  of  religion  and 
proposing  an  object  for  it.  In  Comte’s  Positive  Philosophy  no 
such  recognition  is  found.  After  its  publication,  in  his  love  for 
Madame  Clotilde  de  Vaux  and  his  grief  at  her  death,  the  reli¬ 
gious  element  in  his  constitution  seems  to  have  been  awakened 
and  to  have  asserted  itself  in  his  consciousness.  He  speaks  of  his 
“  moral  regeneration  ”  brought  about  by  this  “  incomparable  an¬ 
gel.”  In  subsequent  works  he  recognizes  religion,  proposes  hu¬ 
manity  as  the  Grand  Etre  to  be  worshiped  and  prescribes  an 
elaborate  ritual.  Of  this  Mr.  Huxley  said  that  it  is  Roman  Ca¬ 
tholicism  with  the  religion  left  out.  This  religion,  as  expounded 
by  Mr.  Frederic  Harrison,  presents  the  ideal  of  all  that  is  strong¬ 
est,  wisest,  noblest  and  best  in  humanity  as  the  object  of  worship. 
Here  is  agreement  with  theism  in  recognizing  religion  as  neces¬ 
sary  to  man  and  in  proposing  as  its  object,  not  the  universe  nor 
any  thing  physical  or  material,  but  the  true,  the  right,  the  per¬ 
fect,  the  worthy  and  good,  the  rational  and  spiritual,  in  the  high¬ 
est  forms  in  which  they  are  known  in  the  constitution  and  history 
of  man.  The  fatal  defect  is  that  this  grand  object  is  only  an  ab¬ 
stract  idea,  not  a  being ;  much  less  a  personal  Spirit  that  can 
know,  love  and  help  the  worshiper  and  be  the  object  of  his  trust 
and  hope  and  love. 

Agnostics  and  monists  generally  agree  with  theism  in  the 
recognition  of  religion  as  constitutional  in  man  and  the  necessity 
of  providing  for  it,  at  least  in  the  imagination,  some  object  of 
worship. 

Agnostics  and  monists  further  agree  with  theism  in  affirming 
the  knowledge  that  absolute  Being  exists  as  the  ultimate  ground 
of  the  universe.  Since  physical  science  has  left  the  Comtist 
positivism  behind  as  inadequate  to  the  purposes  of  science,  the 
number  who  deny  the  knowledge  that  an  absolute  Being  exists 
is  inconsiderable ;  and  the  theist  is  justified  in  assuming  that  its 
existence  at  least  is  conceded  by  all  who  hold  to  the  reality  of 
knowledge  in  distinction  from  phenomenalism. 


THE  ABSOLUTE  BEING  AND  THEISM. 


223 


Monists,  both  pantheistic  and  materialistic,  agree  still  further 
with  theism  in  asserting  that  it  is  possible  for  man  to  have  some 
positive  and  real  knowledge  of  what  the  absolute  Being  is.  This 
being  admitted  the  next  question  at  issue  is,  whether  the  abso¬ 
lute  Being  is  Reason  or  Spirit. 

On  this  question,  again,  the  idealistic  pantheists  agree  with  the 
theist  in  affirming  that,  in  some  sense,  it  is  so.  Hartmann,  for 
example,  presents  with  great  clearness  and  force  convincing  evi¬ 
dence  that  the  absolute  Being  is  Spirit.  With  pantheists  of  this 
type  the  question  at  issue  is  reduced  to  this :  Is  the  absolute  Rea¬ 
son  or  Spirit  a  conscious  personal  Spirit  ? 

Materialism  has  little  in  common  with  theism  beyond  the  bare 
recognition  that  something  unconditioned  exists  and  that  we 
may  know  what  it  is ;  if  indeed  at  the  present  day  there  are  any 
materialists  in  the  strict  meaning  of  the  word.  Professor  Haeckel 
and  Dr.  Buchner  perhaps  are  as  near  as  any  among  educated  men 
to  being  representatives  of  this  form  of  unbelief.  Haeckel,  after 
defining  what  he  calls  “  scientific  materialism,”  says  :  “  Moral  or 
ethical  materialism  ...  is  quite  distinct.  ...  It  proposes  no  other 
aim  to  man  than  the  most  refined  possible  gratification  of  the 
senses.  It  is  based  on  the  delusion  that  purely  material  enjoy¬ 
ment  can  alone  give  satisfaction  to  man.  .  .  .  The  profound  truth 
that  the  real  value  of  life  does  not  lie  in  material  enjoyment  but 
in  moral  action,  that  true  happiness  does  not  depend  on  external 
possessions  but  only  on  a  virtuous  life  —  this  is  unknown  to  etln 
ical  materialists.”  1  Lange  makes  the  same  distinction  :  u  If  by 
practical  materialism  we  understand  a  dominant  inclination  to 
material  acquisition  and  enjoyment,  then  theoretical  materialism 
is  opposed  to  it,  as  is  every  effort  of  the  spirit  towards  knowl¬ 
edge.”2  Materialism,  denying  that  any  thing  exists  except  mat¬ 
ter  and  its  forces,  is  logically  shut  off  from  recognizing  this  higher 
end  of  life  which  transcends  sensuous  enjoyment  and  material  ac¬ 
quisitions.  These  disclaimers,  expressing  the  consciousness  of 
cultivated  men,  are  unwitting  protests  against  materialism  as  not 
capable  of  satisfying  the  higher  nature  of  man ;  they  are  unwit¬ 
ting  revelations  of  the  existence  of  that  higher  spiritual  capacity 
which  demands  other  than  sensuous  pleasures  and  material  pos¬ 
sessions;  thus  they  are  evidence  that  man  can  be  comprehended 
only  as  a  spirit  related  to  God,  the  absolute  Spirit.  From  many, 
who,  whether  properly  called  materialists  or  not,  have  lost  their 

1  History  of  the  Creation,  vol.  i.  pp.  35-37,  Trans. 

2  History  of  Materialism,  vol.  i.  p.  46,  Thomas’s  Trans. 


224 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


belief  in  God,  similar  testimony  comes  in  the  sorrow  and  some¬ 
times  the  anguish  with  which  they  see  this  great  inspiration  of 
the  higher  life  dying  out.  Of  the  same  purport  is  their  testi¬ 
mony  that  in  their  best  hours  it  spontaneously  reasserts  its  power. 
Such  is  the  testimony  of  Mr.  Tyndall :  “  Christian  men  are 
proved  by  their  writings  to  have  their  hours  of  weakness  and 
doubt,  as  well  as  their  hours  of  strength  and  conviction  ;  and 
men  like  myself  share,  in  their  own  way,  these  variations  of  mood 
and  tense.  ...  I  have  noticed  during  years  of  self-observation 
that  it  is  not  in  hours  of  clearness  and  vigor  that  this  doctrine 
(of  materialistic  atheism)  commends  itself  to  my  mind ;  that  in 
the  presence  of  stronger  and  healthier  thought  it  ever  dissolves 
and  disappears,  as  offering  no  solution  of  the  mystery  in  which 
we  dwell  and  of  which  we  form  a  part.”  1 

Theism  takes  up  whatever  religious  truth  is  implied  in  any 
form  of  atheism  or  in  any  line  of  human  thought,  supplies  their 
defects,  and  gives,  and  it  alone  gives,  a  reasonable  and  satisfac¬ 
tory  explanation  of  the  universe. 

7.  It  remains  to  notice  some  pantheistic  misconceptions  which 
some  theists  are  inclining  to  accept  as  broadening  and  strength¬ 
ening  the  positions  of  theism,  but  which  only  embarrass  and  con¬ 
fuse  theistic  thought.  Whatever  of  truth  is  in  these  conceptions 
is  more  clearly,  correctly  and  effectively  set  forth  in  theism  itself, 
without  the  pantheistic  error. 

Kant  says :  “  Reason  has  no  ground,  in  regard  to  the  category 
of  substance,  to  proceed  regressively  with  conditions.  For  acci¬ 
dents  (qualities)  so  far  as  they  inhere  in  a  substance  are  coordi¬ 
nated  with  each  other  and  do  not  constitute  a  series.  And  they 
are  not  properly  subordinated  to  substance,  but  are  the  mode  of 
existence  of  the  substance  itself.  It  is  therefore  only  in  the 
category  of  causality  that  we  can  find  a  series  of  causes  to  a 
given  effect,  in  which  we  ascend  from  the  effect  as  conditioned 
to  the  cause  as  conditioning,  and  thus  answer  the  question  of 
reason.” 2  The  questions  of  reason  which  theism  must  answer 
pertain  not  to  substance  but  to  cause,  law  and  end ;  to  the  inter¬ 
action  of  individual  finite  agents,  personal  and  impersonal,  and 
their  unity  in  a  dynamic  and  rational  system.  The  essential 
conception  of  pantheism  is  that  the  universe  is  one  in  substance, 
by  whatever  name  the  substance  may  be  called.  This  sets  aside 
at  once  the  essential  and  fundamental  conceptions  of  theism. 

1  Preface  to  Address  before  the  British  Association  at  Belfast. 

2  Critique  of  Pure  Reason,  Transcendental  Dialectic,  bk.  ii.  chap.  ii.  sect.  1. 


THE  ABSOLUTE  BEING  AND  THEISM.  225’ 

From  this  unwarranted  primal  assumption  of  pantheism  arises  a 
swarm  of  inferences  incompatible  with  theism. 

Hegel  says  that  if  one  considers  the  reality  of  things  he  must 
renounce  his  own  individuality,  cease  to  regard  reason  as  his  own 
in  a  distinct  personality,  and  must  regard  himself  as  universal 
consciousness  ;  for  the  reason  is  the  divine  spirit ;  and  only  in 
this  way  can  he  escape  the  antitheses  which  appear  in  the  uni¬ 
verse.  This  is  a  necessary  inference  if  there  is  but  one  being 
and  man  is  only  a  mode  of  the  universal  substance,  having  no 
personal  being  and  destined  to  be  reabsorbed  into  the  absolute 
again.  But  theism  recognizes  individual  persons  who  know 
God,  are  subjects  of  his  law  and  objects  of  his  love,  and  who  live 
in  communion  with  him.  Therefore,  according  to  theism,  the 
nearer  man  comes  to  God,  and  the  more  clearly  and  fully  he  sees 
him  in  the  grandeur  of  his  perfections,  the  breadth,  purity  and 
inviolability  of  his  law,  and  the  greatness  of  his  redeeming  love, 
the  more  is  he  aware  of  his  own  personal  greatness  and  worth, 
the  more  does  his  personality  reveal  its  godlike  powers,  the  more 
does  he  become  aware  of  the  responsibility,  obligations  and  pos¬ 
sibilities  of  his  personal  being. 

Hegel  also  says  that  to  apprehend  God  as  the  supreme  Being 
is  to  make  him  hollow,  empty  and  poor.  This  is  a  necessary  in¬ 
ference  from  pantheism.  God  is  the  one  only  being ;  he  cannot 
be  the  supreme  Being,  for  this  would  distinguish  him  from  other 
beings.  But  according  to  theism  God  is  distinguished  from  all 
finite  beings  as  the  ground  of  their  existence.  He  is  the  supreme 
Being  as  the  absolute  Reason  in  whom  all  truth  and  law  are 
eternal,  the  eternal  ground  of  all  truth,  law,  authority  and  obli¬ 
gation. 

Hegel  says  that  the  wisdom  of  this  age  has  made  God  an 
infinite  ghost  (  Grespenst )  which  is  far  from  us  beyond  the  stars ; 
and  so  has  made  human  perception  QErkenntniss')  into  an  empty 
ghost  of  finiteness,  or  into  a  mirror  on  which  fall  only  forms  and 
phenomena.  But  the  alternative  is  not  between  one  only  being, 
and  God  a  ghost  beyond  the  stars  ;  for  according  to  the  theistic 
idea  God  is  not  far  from  every  one  of  us,  we  know  him,  trust 
him,  commune  with  him,  serve  him.  And  this  is  not  the  pan¬ 
theistic  losing  of  ourselves  in  the  absolute,  but  it  is  standing  be¬ 
fore  God  face  to  face,  it  is  being  received  by  him  as  his  children* 
it  is  greatening  the  personality  of  man  by  his  communion  with 
God  and  service  of  him,  it  is  knowing  him,  as  Niebuhr  says* 

“  Heart  to  heart  with  us.” 

15 


226 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


Those  who  have  merely  an  historical  knowledge  of  God  and 
have  not  become  personally  acquainted  with  him  in  experience 
are  compared  by  Hegel  to  book-keepers  in  a  great  commercial 
house  who  keep  account  of  all  the  transactions  but  own  nothing 
themselves  in  the  concern.1  The  distinction  is  important  and  the 
comparison  striking.  Yet  since  the  pantheist  thinks  himself 
merely  a  mode  of  the  absolute  Being,  and  will  himself  eventually 
lose  his  individual  being  in  the  All  whence  he  came,  it  is  he  who 
knows  the  absolute  while  personally  he  owns  no  interest  therein  ; 
it  is  not  the  theist,  who  knows  God  as  the  giver  of  all  good  ;  who 
is  the  recipient  of  his  blessings,  active  in  his  service,  filled  with 
his  fulness,  and  can  say  :  uThou  art  my  Father,  my  God  and  the 
rock  of  my  salvation  ;  ”  and  who  looks  forward  to  personal  im¬ 
mortality  in  communion  with  him. 

Hartmann  objects  :  “  God  cannot  be  called  holy,  because  he 
has  not,  like  a  limited  personality,  to  govern  his  relations  to 
other  persons  by  moral  laws.  God,  as  the  cause  of  moral  law,  is 
indeed  its  sanctifier,  but  he  is  not  holy  according  to  its  criterion. 
Only  when  it  is  shown  that  God  does  not  stand  with  his  personal 
caprice  behind  the  law  as  its  maker,  but  goes  out  with  his  will 
into  the  moral  world-order,  and  also  that  the  moral  world-order, 
so  far  as  it  affects  man,  can  itself  be  identified  with  God,  may 
the  holiness  of  the  moral  world-order  be  transferred  to  the  God 
identical  with  it.”  2  But  here  is  the  error  that  the  alternative  is 
between  God  as  the  unconscious  constitution  of  things,  and  a 
God  standing  with  his  personal  caprice  behind  law,  thus  making 
law  to  be  the  arbitrary  decree  of  a  capricious  will.  Whereas 
theism  presents  God  as  the  absolute  Reason  in  whom  all  truth 
and  law  are  archetypal  and  eternal.  These  eternal  principles 
and  laws  are  the  constitution  of  the  universe.  No  power  of 
either  physical  force  or  personal  agency,  no  will-power  of  man  or 
God  can  annul,  subvert  or  change  them.  And  with  these  truths 
and  laws,  these  rational  ideals  and  ends,  God’s  will  in  free  spon¬ 
taneity  is  eternally  in  harmony.  The  universe  as  the  progressive 
and  never  ending  realization  of  these  principles  is  the  progressive 
expression  and  revelation  of  the  eternal  and  perfect  Reason. 

An  objection  is  urged  that  in  ascribing  reason,  will  and  various 
attributes  to  God  we  think  of  him  as  divided,  as  dual  or  plural. 
But  as  theism  puts  it,  these  are  merely  different  names  of  the  one 
absolute  Being  revealed  in  different  aspects.  When  we  think 

1  Hegel,  Philosophic  der  Religion,  vol.  i.  pp.  31,  34,  37,  42. 

2  Die  Religion  des  Geistes,  pp.  171,  172,  part  B. 


THE  ABSOLUTE  BEING  ANT)  THEISM. 


227 


that  all  truths,  laws,  ideals  and  ends,  and  all  archetypes  of  things 
in  accordance  with  the  same,  are  eternal  in  the  absolute  Being, 
we  call  him  Reason.  When  we  think  of  him  energizing  in  ac¬ 
cordance  with  these  truths  and  laws  for  the  realization  of  all 
perfection  and  good,  we  call  him  Will  or  Power ;  and  in  refer¬ 
ence  to  his  character  revealed  in  the  eternal  harmony  of  the  will 
with  the  reason,  we  call  him  Love  and  Wisdom.  When  we 
think  of  him  as  conscious  of  himself  in  unity  and  identity,  we 
call  him  Person.  When  we  think  of  him  as  unconditioned  in 
dependence  and  unlimited  in  time,  space  and  quantity,  we  call 
him  the  Absolute  and  the  Infinite.  When  we  think  of  him  as 
the  author  and  supporter  of  the  universe,  we  call  him  the  All¬ 
conditioning,  the  u  Great  First  Cause.”  But  as  the  one  being 
existing  in  all  these  aspects,  we  call  him  God,  the  eternal 
Spirit. 

As  theism  puts  it,  God  is  the  ground  alike  of  all  finite  being, 
power  and  rational  intelligence.  Reason  must  be  universal;  truth 
and  right,  the  rational  standards  of  perfection  and  worth,  must 
be  everywhere  and  always  the  same.  The  power  that  orders  the 
universe  must  order  it  according  to  the  universal  principles,  laws, 
ideals  and  ends  of  the  one  absolute  Reason;  otherwise  no  rational 
conclusion  would  be  possible,  no  scientific  observation  would  be 
trustworthy,  no  scientific  system  could  be  verified,  science  would 
be  disintegrated,  and  all  knowledge  crumbled  into  isolated  and 
illusive  impressions.  Hence  God  is  essential  to  the  reality  of  all 
knowledge  as  well  as  of  all  being.  We  cannot  think  him  away; 
for  without  the  assumption  explicit  or  implied  of  his  existence, 
all  ratiocinated  thought  becomes  empty  and  cannot  conclude  in 
knowledge.  If  thought  rests  ultimately  on  zero  all  its  creations 
and  conclusions  must  be  zero. 

If  we  assume  that  God,  as  indeterminate  being,  is  zero  and  that 
he  comes  to  consciousness  in  man,  then  it  is  man  who  creates 
God  rather  than  God  who  creates  man.  So  J.  G.  Fichte  is  said  to 
have  announced  to  his  class:  “  To-morrow  we  will  create  God.” 
If  we  assume  the  external  existence,  independent  of  God,  of 
gross  matter,  or  of  a  homogeneous  nebulous  matter,  or  of  a  form¬ 
less  and  motionless  fluid,  or  of  something  still  more  subtile,  the 
principles  and  laws  which  are  the  constitution  of  the  universe, 
then  God  is  conditioned  by  this  reality  existing  independent  of 
himself  and  becomes  a  mere  demiurge,  shaping  the  worlds  as 
under  these  external  and  independent  conditions  he  best  can. 
And  here  again  the  ultimate  ground  of  the  universe  is  in  the 
impersonal  and  the  unconscious. 


228 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


On  either  of  these  last  mentioned  assumptions  a  man  may  con¬ 
sistently  amuse  himself  by  toying  with  the  idea  of  God.  He  may 
ask  himself  what  would  be  if  God  were  other  than  he  is,  or  if  he 
did  not  exist,  and  may  imagine  that  he  can  answer  the  questions. 
He  may  think  of  God  as  non-existent  and  yet  may  imagine  the 
universe  with  its  constitution  and  laws  remaining  as  it  is,  and 
himself  existing  and  thinking  under  the  regulative  principles  of 
reason  as  now.  What  difference  does  the  non-existence  of  God 
make  to  his  rationality  ?  Neither  his  own  rational  constitution 
nor  the  constitution  of  the  universe  is  dependent  on  God.  He  is 
above  God  and  can  in  thought  dismiss  him  from  the  universe. 
God  is  not  essential  to  his  knowledge  and  rationality.  He  ad* 
mits  God  indeed  to  a  corner  of  his  mind.  He  timorously  pleads 
that  it  is  possible  to  have  some  knowledge  of  God ;  or  if  not 
knowledge,  at  least  an  indefinable  belief.  The  knowledge  of 
God  is  dubiously  admitted,  while  the  knowledge  of  the  universe 
is  pronounced  real  and  indubitable  and  would  remain  indubita¬ 
ble  knowledge  if  there  were  no  God.  Hence  his  religion  may 
consistently  be  crowded  into  a  corner  of  his  life,  into  a  closet  in 
which  he  worships  ;  while  the  great  area  of  life  and  its  interests 
lies  entirely  outside  of  it ;  and  both  his  thinking  about  God  and 
his  religion  take  on  unreality. 

When  one  accustomed  to  such  thoughts  of  God  begins  to  see 
that  God  is  the  absolute  Reason,  that  he  cannot  be  thought  other- 
wise  without  annulling  man’s  own  reason,  that  if  he  is  non-ex¬ 
istent  the  universe  with  its  constitution,  its  rational  principles 
and  laws,  its  ideals  and  its  good,  disappears  with  him  and  there 
no  longer  remains  any  reason  or  any  intelligent  thought,  then  his 
knowledge  of  God  will  take  on  a  reality,  grandeur  and  power 
such  as  he  had  never  conceived.  Instead  of  timorously  pleading 
to  be  allowed  some  belief  in  God  in  a  corner  of  his  knowledge, 
he  will  see  that  his  own  rationality  and  all  rational  intelligence 
rest  on  the  existence  of  God,  the  supreme  Reason.  Instead  of 
amusing  himself  with  thinking  God  other  than  he  is  or  non-ex¬ 
istent,  he  will  see  that  all  rational  intelligence  rests  on  his  exist¬ 
ence  ;  and  that  if  God  were  not  or  were  other  than  he  is,  all  ra¬ 
tional  thought  and  knowledge  would  cease,  there  would  be  no 
difference  between  the  reasonable  and  the  absurd  and  the  one 
would  be  as  possible  as  the  other,  and  the  universe  and  all  its 
principles  and  laws,  its  perfection  and  its  worth,  would  be  no 
more.  Now  the  knowledge  of  God,  no  longer  crowded  into  a 
corner  and  affirmed  with  doubt,  becomes  the  basis  of  all  rational 


THE  ABSOLUTE  BEING  AND  THEISM. 


229 


thinking  and  the  all-pervading  and  sustaining  life  of  all  rational 
intelligence.  And  religion,  no  longer  secluded  in  a  corner,  takes 
possession  of  man’s  whole  being,  inspires  and  ennobles  all  his 
activity,  is  that  which  alone  makes  life  worth  living.  He  begins 
to  understand  that  God  is  not  far  from  every  one  of  us ;  that  in 
him  we  live  and  move  and  have  our  being. 

Man’s  consciousness  of  his  limitations  reveals  his  consciousness 
of  the  absolute.  He  beats  against  the  bars  of  his  cage  because 
he  has  wings  and  is  competent  to  soar  in  the  empyrean  beyond. 
Brutes  follow  their  instincts  with  no  irksomeness  under  their 
limitations  and  no  consciousness  that  they  are  limited.  It  is  be¬ 
cause  their  limitation  is  complete  and  they  have  no  capacity  for 
another  sphere.  Complete  limitation  excludes  all  consciousness 
of  the  limit.  Man’s  consciousness  of  limitation  is  the  conscious¬ 
ness  of  a  reserved  power  which  would  find  its  sphere  if  the  lim¬ 
itations  were  removed.  Man  cannot  be  content  in  the  finite 
only.  He  aspires  to  know  the  absolute  Being,  to  enter  into  com¬ 
munion  with  him  and  to  know  all  reality  in  unity  in  relation 
to  him.  It  is  this  aspiration  toward  the  absolute,  this  struggle 
to  transcend  the  limits  of  sense  and  matter,  this  longing  to  com¬ 
mune  with  the  eternal  Spirit,  which  reveals  the  grandeur  of 
man’s  being,  and  which  has  been  the  spring  of  all  that  is  noblest 
and  greatest  in  the  achievements  of  the  individual  and  in  the 
history  of  mankind. 

We  have  already  considered  the  belief  in  a  divinity  which 
arises  spontaneously  from  the  constitution  of  man  as  acted  on  by 
his  environment,  and  have  thus  ascertained  the  origin  of  the  idea 
of  God.  We  have  seen  that  this  spontaneous  belief  must  be  veri¬ 
fied  in  thought.  The  verification  is  the  proof  that  God  exists. 
We  have  been  considering  the  verification  of  this  belief  directly 
from  the  intuitive  reason,  and  have  found  that  it  is  a  principle 
of  reason  and  a  necessary  law  of  thought  that  an  absolute  Being 
exists.  Here  then  we  have,  if  I  may  so  say,  two  legs  of  the  belief 
in  God  resting  firmly  on  what  is  constitutional,  spontaneous  and 
intuitive  in  man.  We  have  the  primitive  belief  in  a  divinity 
arising  in  experience,  and  the  belief  that  absolute  Being  exists* 
arising  in  rational  intuition.  We  proceed  to  inquire  what  this 
absolute  Being  must  be  and  whether  it  is  the  God  whom  we  ought 
to  worship.  Is  the  God  whom  we  worship  the  absolute  Being 
that  reason  reveals  ? 


*• 


■ 


. 


PART  III 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  THE  UNIVERSE  AS  PERSONAL 
SPIRIT  THROUGH  THE  CONSTITUTION  AND  COURSE 
OF  NATURE  AND  THE  CONSTITUTION  AND  HISTORY 
OF  MAN. 


“  Wouldst  know  the  whole?  then  scan  the  parts;  for  all 
That  molds  the  great  lies  mirrored  in  the  small.”  — Goethe. 

“  If  we  insist  on  penetrating  the  insoluble  mystery  of  the  essential  cause  of  phenomena, 
there  is  no  hypothesis  more  satisfactory  than  that  they  proceed  from  wills  dwelling  in  them 
or  outside  of  them.  .  .  .  Were  it  not  for  the  pride  induced  by  metaphysical  and  scientific 
studies  it  would  be  inconceivable  that  any  atheist,  ancient  or  modern,  should  have  believed 
that  his  vague  hypothesis  on  such  a  subject  was  preferable  to  this  direct  mode  of  explana¬ 
tion.  And  it  was  the  only  mode  which  really  satisfied  reason,  until  men  began  to  see  the 
utter  folly  and  inutility  of  all  search  for  absolute  truth.  The  order  of  nature  is  doubtless 
very  imperfect ;  but  its  production  is  far  more  compatible  with  the  hypothesis  of  an  intelli¬ 
gent  will  than  with  that  of  a  blind  mechanism.  Persistent  atheists  therefore  would  seem 
to  be  the  most  illogical  of  theologians;  for  they  occupy  themselves  with  the  same  questions,, 
yet  reject  the  onhr  appropriate  method  of  handling  them.” — Comte,  Politique  Positive , 
Translation,  vol.  i.  p.  37,  London  ed.  1875. 

“  Yerv  little  thought  is  required  to  satisfy  one’s  self  that  the  natural,  all  and  everywhere, 
rests  upon  the  supernatural  and  terminates  in  it.  Every  atom  of  nature  still  preaches  its 
supernatural  origin  and  being.”  —  Hartmann,  Die  Religion  des  Geistes ,  part  B,  p.  118. 

“Nature  is  a  kind  of  illuminated  table  of  the  contents  of  the  spirit.”  —  Novalis. 

“Esse  apibus  partem  divinae  mentis,  et  haustus 
^Ethereos  dixere;  deum  namque  ire  per  omnes 
Terrasque,  tractusque  maris,  coelumque  profundum.” 

Virgil,  Georgic  iv.  220-223. 

“  Man  is  man’s  A,  B,  C  ;  there ’s  none  that  can 
Read  God  aright  unless  he  first  spell  man.”  — Quarles. 

“  Res  non  tarn  sub  duratione  quam  sub  quadam  specie  aeternitatis  percipit  et  numero  in- 
finito.”  — Spinoza,  De  Intellectus  Emendatione ,  Opera,  vol.  ii.  p.  41,  Leipsic,  ed.  1844. 

“  No  bar  the  spirit-world  hath  ever  borne; 

It  is  thy  thought  is  shut,  thy  heart  is  dead. 

Up,  scholar,  bathe,  unwearied  and  unworn, 

Thine  earthly  breast  in  morning’s  beams  of  red.” 


CHAPTER  XI. 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  THE  UNIVERSE  AS  THE  POWER  FROM 
WHICH  IT  ORIGINATES  AND  ON  WHICH  IT  DEPENDS. 

Theism  affirms  that  the  absolute  Being  is  revealed  in  the  uni¬ 
verse  as  the  personal  God,  the  eternal  Spirit,  both  in  the  physical 
system  and  in  the  moral  or  spiritual.  This  revelation  is  three¬ 
fold. 

God  is  revealed  in  the  causal  energy  acting  in  the  universe,  as 
the  Power  from  which  it  originates  and  on  which  it  depends ;  as 
the  First  Cause,  whose  power  is  manifested  continuously  and 
everywhere  in  the  universe. 

God  is  revealed  in  the  universe  as  personal  Spirit  through  the 
constitution  and  course  of  nature. 

God  is  further  revealed  in  the  universe  as  personal  Spirit 
through  the  constitution  and  history  of  man.  These  three  lines 
of  God’s  revelation  of  himself  in  the  universe  will  be  the  subjects 
of  the  three  chapters  of  this  Third  Part. 

These  three  lines  of  evidence  are  commonly  called  arguments. 
They  consist  rather  in  tracing  out  and  interpreting  the  manifes¬ 
tations  or  revelations  of  the  absolute  Being  in  the  universe.  So 
far  as  they  involve  argument  it  consists  in  inferring  from  these 
manifestations  what  the  absolute  Being  is  revealed  to  be. 

In  controverting  these  arguments  it  is  commonly  assumed  that 
they  are  presented  as  evidences  that  the  absolute  Being  exists. 
But  thus  the  true  point  and  significance  of  the  evidence  are 
missed,  and  at  the  utmost  all  which  is  refuted  is  what  the  evi¬ 
dence  is  not  designed  to  prove.  We  already  know  that  the  ab¬ 
solute  Being  exists.  This  is  a  necessary  principle  of  reason  or 
law  of  thought  underlying  all  proving  and  all  thinking. 

Assuming  this,  in  the  three  lines  of  evidence  now  to  be  con¬ 
sidered  we  are  not  proving  that  the  absolute  Being  exists,  but  by 
the  study  of  the  universe  so  far  as  open  to  our  observation,  we 
ure  ascertaining  what  can  be  known  of  the  absolute  Being  every¬ 
where  manifested  in  it.  Theism  claims  that  it  finds  in  the  uni¬ 
verse  manifestations  of  the  absolute  Being,  unchanging  in  its 


234 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


eternal  essence,  the  all-originating  and  ever  energizing  first  Cause* 
the  universal  and  supreme  Reason.  This  is  being  in  its  highest 
form,  Being,  Power,  Reason,  the  three  in  one,  unconditioned,  un¬ 
changeable,  the  eternal  Spirit,  the  personal  God.  We  are  to  ex¬ 
amine  the  universe  to  ascertain  whether  this  claim  of  theism  can 
be  substantiated. 

The  first  of  the  three  lines  of  evidence  is  called  the  cosmolog¬ 
ical  argument. 

This  considers  the  universe  merely  as  existing  and  manifest¬ 
ing  power  or  causal  energy  ;  it  takes  no  notice  of  the  existence 
of  rational  beings  in  the  universe  nor  of  the  evidence  of  rational 
direction  and  design.  And  all  which  the  theist  aims  to  establish 
by  it  is,  that  the  absolute  Being  is  revealed  in  the  universe  as  the 
first  Cause,  as  th<y  absolute  and  unconditiorifid^gojirce  of  the  causal 
energies  ever  acting  in  it,  as  the  transcendent  Power  from  which 
it  proceeds  and  on  which  it  depends.  It  is  not  therefore  the  whole 
evidence  as  to  what  the  absolute  Being  is,  but  only  a  single  step 
in  attaining  the  knowledge  of  it.  All  objections  to  this  line  of 
evidence,  because  it  does  not  prove  something  other  than  this, 
are  entirely  aside  from  the  point. 

In  examining  this  evidence,  the  essential  point  is  to  ascertain 
whether  the  absolute  Being  is  a  first  Cause  that  transcends  the 
univerfe  or  is  simply  identical  with  it. 

Monism,  pantheistic  and  materialistic,  affirms  that  the  absolute 
Being  is  identical  with  the  universe  ;  that  there  is  therefore  no 
occasion  to  inquire  for  any  transcendent  cause.  The  false  ideas 
and  methods,  the  difficulties  and  contradictions  involved  in  all 
monistic  theories  have  already  been  exposed.  In  contradiction  of 
these,  theism  affirms  that  the  universe,  so  far  as  known  to  us,  is 
found  to  be  incompatible  with  the  monistic  theories  ;  that  it  is 
essentially  limited,  conditioned  and  dependent ;  that  therefore  it 
cannot  itself  be  the  absolute  Being ;  that  consequently  it  must  be 
dependent  on  causal  power  other  than  and  transcending  the  uni¬ 
verse.  The  cosmological  argument  consists  in  establishing  this 
position  from  an  examination  of  the  universe  so  far  as  we  can 
know  it.  Hence  Leibnitz  rightly  called  it  the  argument  from  the 
contingency  of  the  world.  It  is  necessary  to  this  argument  to 
establish  the  fact  that  the  universe  is  alwavs  conditioned  and  de¬ 
pendent,  consequently  an  effect.  Then  the  inference  is  inevitable 
that  the  universe  is  not  itself  the  eternal,  self-existent,  uncondi¬ 
tioned  Being,  but  that  it  reveals  the  power  of  the  absolute  Being 
transcending  it  and  on  which  it  depends. 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  THE  UNIVERSE. 


235 


Here  it  is  objected  that  in  order  to  prove  that  the  universe  is 
an  effect  we  must  prove  that  it  had  a  beginning.  And  it  is  urged 
with  triumphant  confidence  that  this  is  impossible.  Of  course  it 
is  impossible  to  prove  by  any  historical  testimony  that  the  uni¬ 
verse  had  a  beginning.  But  an  object,  an  arrangement,  an  equi¬ 
librium  of  forces  may  be  known  to  be  an  effect,  although  the 
causal  act  has  not  been  observed.  The  most  of  scientific  dis¬ 
coveries  of  unknown  causes  rest  on  the  assumption  that  causes 
may  be  thus  discovered.  In  the  same  manner  we  may  know  that 
the  universe  is  an  effect.  It  is  known  to  be  so  because  it  bears 
in  its  essence  unmistakable  marks  of  finiteness  and  dependence. 
This  becomes  continually  more  evident  the  more  thoroughly 
science  explores  it. 

First,  the  universe  cannot  be  comprehended  scientifically  by 
the  recognition  only  of  its  multitudinous  and  finite  forces  in  dis¬ 
integration.  Science  is  found  to  be  possible  only  on  the  basis  of 
the  maxim  that  the  sum  of  all  forces  potential  and  energetic  is 
always  the  same.  Nothing  can  ever  be  added  to  it  or  taken  from 
it ;  and  it  is  manifested  or  revealed  in  all  the  particular  and  meas¬ 
urable  forces  observed  in  the  universe.  This  maxim  physical 
science  assumes  without  proof  as  a  self-evident  principle  of  rea¬ 
son  or  law  of  thought  and  necessary  to  all  scientific  knowledge  of 
the  universe.  Thus  science  by  its  exploration  of  the  universe 
has  discovered  that  it,  with  all  its  multitudinous  beings  and  forces, 
is  in  the  unity  of  a  dynamic  system  ;  that  it  is  an  effect ;  and  that 
it  is  the  effect  of  one  cause.  Here  then  the  first  requisite  of  the 
cosmological  argument  is  already  scientifically  established. 

And  it  is  evident  that  this  power  is  not  merely  the  sum  of  all 
the  finite  powers  acting  in  the  universe  ;  for  this  would  imply 
that  it  is  consequent  and  dependent  on  them ;  whereas,  if  this 
power  is  to  meet  the  demand  of  science  under  this  necessary  law 
of  thought,  it  must  be  their  antecedent  and  cause.  Therefore  it 
must  be  the  absolute,  originant  and  transcendent  cause  of  the 
universe. 

And  this  power  or  cause  cannot  be  finite.  Whatever  power  is 
finite  and  measurable  must  be  capable  of  increase  or  diminution. 
This  power,  which  is  the  one  power  from  which  the  universe  pro¬ 
ceeds,  and  which  is  manifested  in  all  its  finite  energies,  and  is  in¬ 
capable  of  increase  or  diminution,  must  be  the  absolute  and  tran¬ 
scendent  Power. 

But  there  can  be  no  power  without  a  being.  Power  or  force 
is  unthinkable  except  as  exerted  or  conveyed  by  a  being.  If  we 


236 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


hypostasize  the  power,  we  only  delude  ourselves  by  transferring 
to  it  the  essential  attributes  of  substantial  being. 

Thus  physical  science  brings  us  to  the  same  necessary  law  of 
thought  which  is  recognized  in  philosophy  and  theology ;  the 
power  from  which  the  universe  proceeds  is  the  power  of  the 
absolute  Being,  transcending  the  universe  and  manifested  or  re¬ 
vealed  in  it. 

It  may  be  added  that  science  finds  the  universe  to  be  not 
merely  in  a  dynamic  but  also  in  a  rational  unity.  At  the  basis 
of  all  science  is  the  assumption  that  the  universe  is  throughout 
a  reasonable  universe,  capable  of  being  scientifically  known  by 
rational  beings  so  far  as  their  rational  powers  are  developed  and 
they  have  opportunity  to  observe  it  ;  and  this  assumption  is  con¬ 
firmed  by  the  whole  progress  of  scientific  investigation.  This 
implies  the  absolute  and  universal  Reason,  everywhere  the  same 
and  everywhere  energizing  and  directing.  Here  again  science 
discloses  the  unity  of  the  universe  as  an  effect  depending  on  a 
cause  transcending  itself.  Further  than  this  the  application  of 
this  thought  is  not  pertinent  in  the  line  of  evidence  now  under 
consideration. 

It  may  be  added,  however,  in  respect  to  the  moral  system,  that 
while  men  know  themselves  rational  and  free,  they  also  know 
in  their  own  self-consciousness  that  they  are  limited,  conditioned 
and  dependent.  They  know  that  the  ultimate  ground  of  the  uni¬ 
verse  is  not  in  man.  The  very  consciousness  of  moral  obliga¬ 
tion  carries  in  it  the  consciousness  of  a  law  above  man,  eternal 
in  the  Reason  that  is  absolute  and  supreme.  Therefore,  so  far 
as  the  universe  has  come  to  any  consciousness  of  itself,  it  is  a 
consciousness  of  limitation  and  dependence,  and  of  a  law  tran¬ 
scending  the  universe  and  significant  only  as  it  is  eternal  in  the 
absolute  Reason. 

In  the  second  place,  the  physical  universe  is  in  its  essence  finite 
and  conditioned.  To  know  it  as  such  it  is  not  necessary  to  push 
our  observations  to  its  utmost  limits  and  to  trace  with  our  own 
eyes  its  farthest  bounds.  Limitation  and  conditionateness  are  of 
the  essence  of  matter,  for  it  is  essentially  that  which  is  contained 
in  and  occupies  space,  and  is  in  other  particulars  in  its  essence  de¬ 
pendent  and  finite.  In  its  masses  and  its  molecules,  and  in  every 
form  of  its  existence  in  time  and  space,  it  is  essentially  finite 
and  conditioned,  and  cannot  be  the  absolute  and  unconditioned 
Being. 

Materialism  supposes  a  definite  quantity  of  matter  and  force 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  THE  UNIVERSE. 


237 


in  the  universe,  conceivably  measurable.  This  is  a  necessary 
conception  from  the  essential  finiteness  of  matter.  If  now  it  is 
assumed  that  the  power  from  which  the  universe  proceeds  and 
on  which  it  depends  is  identical  with  the  universe  itself,  it 
is  a  limited  power.  The  universe  then  becomes  a  mechanism 
which  constructs  itself,  generates  its  own  force,  expends  energy 
in  work  forever,  and  continually  reproduces  the  force  expended. 
This  implies  a  mechanism  realizing  the  absurdity  of  a  perpetual 
self-generating  motion.  And  this  is  as  fibsurd  in  a  great  ma¬ 
chine  as  in  a  small  one. 

Thus  again  science  discovers  that  the  causal  energy  which 
originates  and  sustains  the  universe  cannot  be  the  same  with 
the  universe  itself,  but  must  transcend  it.  The  conception  that 
it  is  identical  with  the  universe  is  unthinkable,  unless  the  essen¬ 
tial  meaning  of  matter  is  changed  and  it  is  assumed  to  be  en¬ 
dowed  with  the  attributes  of  the  absolute  Being. 

Thirdly,  the  universe  is  found  in  fact  to  be  an  effect  in  all  its 
parts  and  in  every  condition  in  which  man  knows  it. 

According  to  the  old  conception  of  a  universe  finished  and 
at  rest  and  of  the  inertia  of  matter,  this  would  not  have  been 
evident.  A  mere  unchanging  substance  carries  the  mind  back 
on  no  regression  to  a  cause.  But  science  has  discovered  that 
nothing  in  the  universe  is  inactive  or  at  rest.  Everywhere  and 
always,  everything,  from  the  largest  mass  to  the  minutest  mole¬ 
cule,  is  in  intense  activity  putting  forth  and  receiving  energy. 
Wherever  we  find  the  universe  or  any  thing  in  it,  we  find  it  an 
effect  of  previous  energy  and  a  cause  of  new  conditions.  And  a 
series  of  causal  actions,  with  nothing  that  originates  it  and  noth¬ 
ing  that  persists  and  is  manifested  in  it,  is  unthinkable. 

Thus,  in  whatever  condition  the  physical  universe  is  found,  we 
must  always  go  back  to  an  antecedent  condition  in  order  to  ac¬ 
count  for  it.  In  its  determinate  condition  it  is  always  found  to 
be  an  effect.  Accordingly  Kant  says  :  “  As  every  determination 
of  matter  which  constitutes  what  is  real  in  it  is  an  effect  which 
must  have  had  a  cause,  and  is  for  this  reason  always  derived, 
the  notion  of  matter  cannot  harmonize  with  the  idea  of  a  neces¬ 
sary  being  in  its  character  as  the  principle  of  all  derived  unity.”1 

Further,  in  its  search  for  physical  causes  science  seems  to  be 
receding  from  matter  and  recognizing  causes  which  continually 
approximate  to  an  abandonment  of  its  essential  idea.  In  account¬ 
ing  for  masses  of  matter  it  recognizes  molecules ;  in  explaining 
1  Critique  of  Pure  Reason,  Transc.  Dialectic,  bk.  iii.  chap.  iii.  sect.  5. 


238 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


the  molecules  it  supposes  atoms ;  in  explaining  the  ethers  it  sup¬ 
poses  atoms  of  a  second  order ;  and  in  explaining  the  atoms  it 
supposes  that  the  atom  itself  may  be  a  complicated  system  with 
its  parts  moving  and  interacting.  Thus  in  finding  the  physical 
causes  of  the  various  determinate  conditions  of  matter  science 
seems  to  be  demonstrating  that  physical  effects  cannot  be  ulti¬ 
mately  accounted  for  by  physical  causes ;  it  seems  to  find  itself 
gradually  forced  out  of  the  material  universe  to  look  for  a  cause 
that  transcends  it. 

If  we  push  our  inquiries  into  the  internal  constitution  of  mat¬ 
ter  to  the  molecules  and  ultimate  atoms,  we  must  indeed  suppose 
that  they  exist  unchanged  through  all  the  changes  of  nature. 
But  this  very  fact  is  urged  by  Clerk-Maxwell  to  prove  that  they 
are  not  products  of  nature.  “  The  formation  of  the  molecule 
is  an  event  not  belonging  to  that  order  of  nature  under  which 
we  live.  It  is  an  operation  of  a  kind  which  is  not,  so  far  as  we 
are  aware,  going  on  on  earth,  or  in  the  sun  or  the  stars,  either 
now  or  since  these  bodies  were  formed.  It  must  be  referred 
to  the  epoch,  not  of  the  formation  of  the  earth  or  of  the  solar 
system,  but  of  the  establishment  of  the  existing  order  of  nature, 
and  till  not  only  these  worlds  and  systems,  but  the  very  order 
of  nature  itself  is  dissolved,  we  have  no  reason  to  expect  the 
occurrence  of  any  operation  of  a  similar  kind.” 

To  many  minds  there  seems  to  be  a  contradiction  involved 
in  the  eternal  existence  of  the  atoms,  on  account  of  their  lim¬ 
itation  in  space  and  the  multitude  of  them.  Professor  Max¬ 
well  adds  that  they  are  alike.  “  There  are  immense  numbers 
of  atoms  of  the  same  kind,  and  the  constants  of  each  of  these 
atoms  are  incapable  of  adjustment  by  any  process  now  in  action. 
Each  is  physically  independent  of  all  the  others.  Whether  or 
not  the  conception  of  a  multitude  of  beings  existing  from  all 
eternity  is  in  itself  self-contradictory,  the  conception  becomes 
palpably  absurd  when  we  attribute  a  relation  of  quantitative 
equality  to  all  these  beings.  We  are  then  forced  to  look  be¬ 
yond  them  to  some  common  cause  or  common  origin  to  explain 
why  this  singular  relation  of  equality  exists,  rather  than  any 
one  of  the  infinite  number  of  possible  relations  of  inequality. 
Science  is  incompetent  to  reason  on  the  creation  of  the  world 
out  of  nothing.  We  have  reached  the  utmost  limit  of  our  think¬ 
ing  faculties  when  we  have  admitted  that,  because  matter  can¬ 
not  be  eternal  and  self-existent,  it  must  have  been  created.”1 

1  Encyc.  Brit.  vol.  iii.  art.  Atom,  p.  49,  9tli  ed. 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  THE  UNIVERSE. 


289 


Thus,  from  its  ultimate  atoms  to  its  largest  masses  and  its 
grandest  systems,  nature  reveals  itself  finite  and  dependent.  No¬ 
where  in  all  our  search  through  the  material  worlds  do  we  find 
any  cause  which  accounts  for  the  universe  itself  nor  ultimately 
for  any  of  its  parts.  Modern  science  repeats  with  new  emphasis 
the  ancient  words  of  Job :  “  The  depth  saith,  It  is  not  in  me, 
and  the  sea  saith,  It  is  not  in  me.”  But  the  universe  and  every¬ 
thing  in  it  points  to  a  cause  beyond  itself. 

Fourthly,  this  conclusion  is  confirmed  by  the  theory  of  evolu¬ 
tion.  This  supposes  a  beginning  of  motion  ;  for  when  motion 
begins  the  nebulous  matter  must  cease  to  be  homogeneous.  The 
theory  does  not  profess  to  account  for  the  beginning  of  motion 
except  by  the  intimation  of  a  force  incident  on  the  homogeneous ; 
this,  if  it  means  anything,  means  a  cause  of  motion  outside  of 
the  universe  itself.  Therefore,  even  if  we  suppose  matter  to 
have  been  without  beginning  as  a  formless  and  motionless  fluid, 
imperceptible  by  sense  till  motion  began,  as  some  scientists  con¬ 
jecture,  or  as  a  homogeneous  nebulous  matter,  as  Spencer  sup¬ 
poses,  it  could  never  have  been  the  cause  of  its  own  motion, 
but  the  motion  must  have  been  communicated  from  without. 
Then  the  universe  as  we  now  know  it  is  the  effect  of  a  cause 
that  transcends  it.  Evolution  also  involves  the  necessary  event¬ 
ual  cessation  of  motion.  If  by  its  continuous  and  necessary  in¬ 
teraction  all  its  forces  must  come  into  equilibrium  and  all  motion 
cease,  this  proves  that  the  motion  and  the  energy  revealed  in  it 
must  have  had  a  beginning.  Thus  modern  researches  in  the  sci¬ 
ence  of  heat  seem  to  give  us  scientific  knowledge  that  the  uni¬ 
verse  had  a  beginning  and  is  an  effect,  and  as  such  is  conditioned 
and  dependent.1 

Finally,  there  are  gaps  or  breaks,  both  in  the  interaction  of 
bodies  in  the  physical  system  and  in  its  evolution,  which  cannot 
be  accounted  for  under  the  law  of  the  conservation  and  correla¬ 
tion  of  force.  Science  teaches  that  bodies,  whether  molar  or 
molecular,  never  come  into  real  contact.  In  cohesion,  chemical 
affinity  and  gravitation,  the  action  is  always  at  a  distance. 
Whether  we  suppose  the  force  acting  in  the  universe  to  be  in¬ 
herent  in  the  masses  or  the  molecules,  or  to  be  communicated  by 
impact,  we  are  confronted  in  every  direction  by  this  mystery  of 
action  at  a  distance  and  by  other  difficulties  which  science  has 
never  resolved.  And  in  the  evolution  of  the  cosmos  there  are 
breaks,  in  the  appearance  of  higher  powers  unaccounted  for  by 

1  Phil.  Basis  of  Theism,  pp.  455-536. 


240 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


any  cause  or  force  known  to  science.  Suck  are  the  beginning  of 
organic  life,  the  beginning  of  sensitivity,  and  the  beginning  of 
rational  personality.1 

From  these  distinct  lines  of  evidence  the  conclusion  is  inevi¬ 
table  that  the  universe  is  essentially  dependent  and  conditioned, 
and  that  the  absolute  Being  cannot  be  the  universe  itself  but 
must  transcend  it. 

When  we  found  that  man  has  knowledge  that  the  absolute 
Being  exists  we  parted  company  with  the  extreme  positivists. 
Here  we  part  from  the  monists,  pantheistic  and  materialistic ; 
for  we  have  refuted  their  theory  that  the  absolute  Being  is  the 
same  with  the  universe.  We  have  learned  that  the  universe  has 
not  its  ultimate  ground  and  cause  in  itself.  This  necessarily 
implies  that  the  absolute  Being  is  distinct  from  the  universe  and 
transcends  it ;  that  it  is  the  eternal  Being  from  which  the  uni¬ 
verse  proceeds  ;  the  first  and  ever  energizing  cause  on  which  the 
universe  depends  always  for  its  existence,  and  whose  power  is 
continually  manifested  in  it. 

Mr.  Spencer  goes  with  the  theist  to  this  point.  He  main¬ 
tains  as  strenuously  as  the  theist  that  we  have  knowledge  that 
the  absolute  Being  exists,  and  that  this  is  a  necessary  law  of 
thought,  “  the  best  guaranteed  of  all.”  He  also  maintains  that 
we  know  the  absolute  positively  as  the  omnipresent  Power  man¬ 
ifesting  itself  in  the  universe.  He  affirms  essentially  the  same 
knowledge  of  God  which  the  theist  reaches,  aside  from  religious 
experience,  in  the  conclusion  of  this  cosmological  argument.  It 
is  only  in  inconsistency  with  himself  that  he  persists  in  affirming 
that  the  absolute  Being  is  the  Unknowable.  He  ought  also  to 
see  that  the  evidence  in  the  universe  that  the  absolute  is  Reason, 
is  of  the  same  kind  and  equally  convincing  with  the  evidence 
that  the  absolute  is  Power.  It  is  surprising  that  he  and  other 
rejecters  of  theism  do  not  see  that  the  conception  of  the  universe 
as  grounded  in  and  directed  by  energizing  Reason  or  God,  is  as 
completely  a  scientific  comprehension  of  it  as  the  conception  of  it 
as  grounded  in  an  insensate  homogeneous,  or  in  Power,  or  in  the 
one  substance,  or  in  primordial  atoms,  or  matter  in  any  form  ; 
and  that  the  theistic  subordination  of  the  physical  to  the  spiritual 
completes  the  unity  of  these,  the  duality  of  which  cannot  be  re¬ 
moved  by  atheism  in  any  form,  but  remains  a  separating  gulf 
which  non-theistic  theories  can  never  bridge. 

An  objection  is  urged  that  theism  implies  a  beginning  of  the 
1  Phil.  Basis  of  Theism,  420-427,  491-526. 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  THE  UNIVERSE. 


241 


universe ;  and  there  is  always  a  difficulty  in  thinking  of  its  be¬ 
ginning.  But  it  is  a  difficulty  which  presses  just  as  heavily  on 
pantheism,  materialism,  agnosticism  and  evolution,  as  on  theism. 
Theism  accounts  for  this  difficulty.  The  absolute  reveals  itself 
as  Reason  energizing  in  wisdom  and  love.  Yet  it  must  always 
reveal  itself  as  the  absolute  ;  and  there  must  be  mystery  all 
along  the  line  at  which  the  absolute  expresses  or  reveals  itself 
in  the  finite.  Creation  can  be  thought  in  the  sense  that  the 
universe  is  always  dependent  on  God  for  its  existence.  God  is 
through  all  time  the  prius  of  the  universe  and  the  ground  of  its 
existence. 

Another  objection  is  that  this  argument  proves  only  that  the 
cause  of  the  universe  is  adequate  to  the  effect  actually  produced, 
but  not  that  it  is  unconditioned  and  unlimited  in  power.  Thus 
Hegel  argues  that  an  infinite  cause  cannot  be  inferred  from  a 
finite  effect.1  Hume  has  urged  the  same  objection  :  “  The  cause 
must  be  proportioned  to  the  effect.  .  .  .  Allowing  the  gods  to 
be  the  authors  of  the  existence  and  order  of  the  universe,  it 
follows  that  they  possess  that  precise  degree  of  power,  intelli¬ 
gence  and  benevolence  which  appears  in  their  workmanship ;  but 
nothing  further  can  be  proved.” 

It  may  be  replied  that  if  the  argument  proves  the  existence 
of  a  being  with  power  adequate  to  cause  the  universe,  then  the 
power  of  this  being  must  transcend  all  other  power  actually  ex¬ 
isting,  which,  as  derived  from  the  first  cause  and  dependent  on 
it,  must  be  inferior  to  it.  The  first  cause  is  then  practically  the 
supreme  and  almighty  Being. 

But  the  radical  error  in  this  objection  is  that  it  assumes  that 
the  existence  of  the  absolute  is  proved  by  an  inference  from 
effect  to  cause.  Under  the  principle  of  causation  we  can  infer 
from  an  effect  only  a  cause  adequate  to  produce  it ;  and  from  the 
universe  as  an  effect  we  can  infer,  as  the  objector  insists,  only  a 
cause  adequate  to  produce  it.  And  this  does  not  give  us  the  ab¬ 
solute  Being  in  its  true  meaning.  On  the  contrary,  that  the  ab¬ 
solute  Being  exists  is  a  necessary  intuition  of  reason,  a  funda¬ 
mental  law  of  thought,  which  asserts  itself  as  the  necessary  ulti¬ 
mate  postulate  in  every  line  of  thought.  Against  this  position 
this  and  analogous  objections  are  powerless.  And  the  position 
itself  is  impregnable,  so  long  as  knowledge  of  being  is  admitted. 
This  is  now  accepted,  as  we  have  seen,  as  an  ultimate  postulate 
and  necessary  law  of  thought,  by  materialists,  pantheists  and 

1  Philosophic  der  Religion,  vol.  ii.  pp.  23,  24. 

16 


242 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


Spencerian  agnostics.  It  is  also  implied  in  the  fundamental 
postulate  of  physical  science,  that  the  sum  of  matter  and  of  force 
potential  and  energetic  is  forever  the  same.  And  thus  it  may 
truly  be  said  that  the  last  word  of  science  is  the  first  word  of 
theology. 

Closely  allied  to  the  objection  last  considered  is  another, 
founded  on  the  persistence  of  force ;  that  there  is  an  exact  equiv¬ 
alence  of  causes  and  effects  ;  that  the  effect  is  the  cause  itself 
reappearing  in  a  new  form  ;  that  therefore  in  reasoning  from  the 
effect  to  the  cause  we  simply  find  in  the  cause  that  which  we  had 
already  found  in  the  effect.  To  this  also  the  answer  is  the  same, 
that  we  do  not  profess  to  prove  the  existence  of  God  merely  by 
reasoning  from  effect  to  cause  under  the  law  of  causation. 

This  objection  implies  also  another  error,  that  the  cause  is 
simply  the  force  which  is  transmitted  and  reappears  in  a  new 
form.  But  the  cause  implies  a  being  that  exerts  or  conveys  the 
force  and  the  effect  is  some  change  in  the  being  that  receives  the 
force.  If  a  cannon  ball  strikes  a  building  and  shatters  it,  the 
force  that  shattered  the  building  is  the  same  with  the  force 
which  was  in  the  moving  ball ;  but  the  ball  which  conveyed  the 
force  and  caused  the  effect  is  not  the  same  with  the  effect,  and 
has  not  passed  into  the  effect  and  disappeared.  The  theory  that 
the  cause  is  the  force  and  in  the  effect  remains  the  same  in  a 
new  form,  is  tenable  only  on  some  theory  which  denies  all  real 
being  and  resolves  all  reality  into  disembodied  force.  But  if  the 
cannon  ball  is  nothing  but  a  force,  the  force,  which  constitutes 
it  a  ball  and  abides  in  it  as  such,  is  just  as  completely  distin¬ 
guished,  and  not  only  distinguished  but  separated  from  the  force 
it  conveys  and  transmits,  as  it  is  if  the  ball  is  a  being.  Hence 
it  is  necessarily  hypostasized,  or  regarded  in  thought  as  a  being. 
So  that,  think  of  it  as  one  will,  a  cause  is  not  identical  with  its 
effect,  is  not  transmitted  into  the  effect,  does  not  disappear  in 
the  effect,  but  remains  capable  of  further  causal  efficiency.  In 
reasoning  from  an  effect,  therefore,  the  causal  judgment  requires 
not  merely  a  force  exerted,  but  also  a  being  that  conveyed  or  ex¬ 
erted  it.  Pushing  our  thought  back  under  the  demands  of  the 
causal  judgment,  we  are  obliged  at  last,  by  a  necessary  law  of 
thought,  to  believe  in  the  existence  of  a  Being  that  is  the  first 
cause  in  which  all  the  powers  actually  found  in  the  universe  exist 
potentially.  And  the  being  that  is  the  cause  of  the  universe  is 
not  identical  with  it.  When  we  apply  a  similar  train  of  thought 
to  rational  free  agents,  who  are  self-directive  and  self-exertive, 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  THE  UNIVERSE. 


243 


the  futility  of  the  objection  becomes  still  more  apparent.  In  fact 
the  force  of  the  objection  rests  on  the  assumption  that  the  uni¬ 
verse  consists  solely  of  physical  forces  acting  in  the  fixed  course 
of  nature,  and  that  no  supernatural  being  and  in  fact  no  real 
being  of  any  kind  exists. 

Hegel  objects  that  if  we  argue  from  effect  to  cause,  we  con¬ 
dition  the  cause  by  the  effect.1  This,  however,  is  only  one  of 
those  pantheistic  objections  which  arise  from  a  false  idea  of  the 
absolute  as  the  sum  total  of  all  realities,  or  as  indeterminate 
being,  or  as  out  of  all  relations,  and  from  the  false  method  of 
confounding  the  order  of  a  logical  process  with  the  order  of  his¬ 
torical  and  concrete  reality.  It  can  be  no  limitation  of  a  poten¬ 
tial  cause  that  it  is  able  to  exert  its  powers  in  action  ;  it  would 
be  a  limitation  if  it  could  not.  It  may  be  added  that  it  is  as 
much  a  limitation  of  absolute  substance  to  unroll  itself  into  many 
modes,  as  for  an  absolute  cause  to  exert  its  energies  in  causing 
many  effects,  or  for  absolute  reason  to  express  its  thoughts  of 
wisdom  and  love  in  finite  forms.  But  these  answers  need  not 
be  insisted  on,  for  this  objection,  like  those  preceding,  derives  its 
force  from  the  error  that  the  existence  of  God  is  proved  solely  by 
reasoning  from  effect  to  cause. 

There  are  also  various  objections  to  the  cosmological  argument 
which  are  founded  on  erroneous  definitions  of  a  cause. 

Some  of  them  rest  on  the  error  that  cause  and  effect  denote 
merely  antecedent  and  consequent.  Mr.  Boole  exemplifies  it : 
A  little  boy  asked  his  brother,  Why  does  going  to  sleep  at  night 
make  it  light  in  the  morning  ?  His  brother,  a  year  or  two  older, 
could  answer,  that  it  would  be  light  in  the  morning  even  if  little 
boys  did  not  go  to  sleep  at  night.2  Men  always  distinguish  be¬ 
tween  a  cause,  in  which  they  recognize  power  or  force,  and  a 
mere  antecedent.  Even  the  child  in  the  anecdote  made  this  dis¬ 
tinction,  for  he  thought  his  going  to  bed  made  the  sun  rise.  His 
mistake  was  not  as  to  the  nature  of  a  cause  but  as  to  the  ques¬ 
tion  of  fact,  what  was  the  particular  cause  of  a  particular  effect. 
This  objection  is  nullified  by  the  present  scientific  conception  of 
force  and  its  fundamental  importance  in  all  scientific  thought. 
Science  does  not  recognize  mere  antecedence  and  consequence, 
but  energy  actually  exerted.  The  law  of  the  correlation  and  con¬ 
servation  of  force  is  a  scientific  recognition  of  this  in  causation. 
The  objection  is  consistent  only  with  complete  phenomenalism 

1  Phil,  (ler  Religion,  vol.  ii.  pp.  24,  25. 

2  Boole’s  Laws  of  Thought,  p.  361. 


244 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


or  Comtist  positivism,  which  rejects  the  reality  of  force,  “as  a 
mere  figment  of  the  imagination.”  Yet  even  these  positivists 
are  obliged  to  use  the  word,  and  their  language  implies  that 
they,  in  common  with  all  men,  in  describing  actual  events,  have 
a  consciousness  of  the  reality  of  the  efficient  power  which  they 
deny.  Hence  Mr.  Spencer  says  :  “  The  consciousness  of  cause 
can  be  abolished  only  by  abolishing  consciousness  itself.”  1  And 
Dr.  Carpenter  says  :  “  The  notion  of  force  is  one  of  those  ele¬ 
mentary  forms  of  thought  with  which  we  can  no  more  dispense 
than  we  can  with  the  notion  of  space  or  of  succession.”  2 

There  are  also  objections  founded  on  the  theory  that  the  belief 
in  causation  is  the  result  of  mental  impotence.  But  it  has  been 
shown  that  the  causal  judgment  does  not  rest  on  mental  impo¬ 
tence,  but  on  the  positive,  self-evident  intuition  of  reason.  The 
same  is  true  of  all  the  first  principles  of  reason,  which  are  laws 
of  thought  and  action.  They  do  not  arise  from  mental  impo¬ 
tence,  but  from  mental  power.  They  are  the  constituent  ele¬ 
ments  of  reason,  by  which  man  is  distinguished  from  the  brutes* 
is  capable  of  reasonable  knowledge,  attains  scientific  compre¬ 
hension  of  the  universe,  and  is  in  affinity  with  God  and  in  his. 
likeness.  On  them  not  only  theology  and  philosophy,  but  also 
all  the  reasoning  of  empirical  science,  must  rest. 

Other  objections  are  founded  on  the  supposition  that  the  causal 
judgment  is  merely  the  result  of  an  association  of  ideas  in  expe¬ 
rience.  Resting  on  this  theory  Professor  Clifford  ridicules  the 
argument  from  causation  as  invalid  and  even  silly.  He  says  that 
the  Greek  word  represented  by  cause  “  has  sixty-four  meanings 
in  Plato,  and  forty-eight  in  Aristotle.”  The  latter  defines  ex¬ 
plicitly  the  four  meanings  of  cause  as  he  uses  the  word.  But  if 
the  assertion  of  Professor  Clifford  were  true,  his  inference  from  it 
would  rest  on  the  puerile  conception  that  a  word  cannot  be  used 
with  exactness  in  science  and  philosophy  if  it  is  also  used  with 
various  other  meanings  in  common  speech.  In  precisely  the  same 
way  the  arguments  of  scientists  respecting  “  force  ”  may  be  ridi¬ 
culed,  because  the  word  u  force  ”  is  sometimes  used  to  denote  the 
stuffing  of  a  turkey  for  roasting,  and  the  Imperial  Dictionary 
gives  it  twenty-eight  separately  numbered  definitions,  with  a 
number  of  synonyms  under  almost  every  one.  This  is  not  an 
argument  but  an  appeal  to  ignorance.  Charity  would  hope  that 
it  was  also  from  ignorance.  But  this  is  not  easy  to  be  believed 

1  The  Classification  of  the  Sciences,  p.  36. 

2  Address  before  the  British  Association,  1872. 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  THE  UNIVERSE. 


245 


of  a  man  characterized  in  the  Rede  Lecture  before  the  University 
of  Cambridge  in  1885  as  “  one  of  the  most  powerful  intellects 

this  University.”  Professor 
Clifford  proceeds  to  give  the  significance  of  the  causal  judgment 
as  he  views  it,  and  ridicules  the  use  of  it  in  philosophy  and  the¬ 
ology.  When  we  have  become  familiar  with  a  property  of  any 
being  and  so  this  has  become  associated  in  our  minds  with  its 
other  properties,  we  transfer  this  property  by  analogy  to  any 
other  being  that  has  any  casual  resemblance  to  it.  You  come  to 
a  scarecrow  and  ask  what  its  cause  is.  You  learn  that  it  is  de¬ 
signed  to  frighten  birds.  You  conclude  that  every  thing  is  like 
the  scarecrow  and  exists  for  a  purpose.  You  see  a  hair-dresser’s 
rotary  brush  and  ask  for  the  cause  of  its  motion  ;  you  learn  that 
it  is  a  man  at  the  handle ;  you  conclude  that  every  thing  has  a 
man  at  the  handle.  By  and  by  a  case  arises  to  which  your  simile 
will  not  apply ;  you  say  that  is  a  mystery.  In  illustration  of 
this  he  supposes  a  man  to  infer  from  his  own  nervous  system  that 
his  umbrella  has  a  nervous  system  ;  but,  as  he  cannot  make  that 
out,  he  says  the  nervous  system  of  his  umbrella  is  a  mystery. 
Whereas  he  should  say  that  it  has  no  nervous  system.1  In  this 
caricature,  for  it  cannot  be  called  an  argument,  he  confuses  under 
the  idea  of  cause  the  efficient  cause,  the  final  cause  and  the  prin¬ 
ciple  of  the  uniformity  and  continuity  of  nature,  apparently  with¬ 
out  being  aware  of  the  difference  between  them.  And  the  belief 
in  causation  he  explains  as  the  result  of  a  casual  association  of 
ideas  and  some  loose  resemblance  unscientifically  observed.  But 
if  this  is  the  true  conception  of  the  causal  judgment,  it  involves 
the  denial  of  the  validity  of  all  inferences  from  an  effect  to  its 
cause  or  from  the  uniformity  and  continuity  of  nature.  But  since 
all  physical  science  rests  helplessly  on  the  principles  on  which 
these  inferences  rest,  his  ridicule  is  as  effective  against  it  as 
against  philosophy  and  theology. 

Physicus,  in  Theism,  thinks  that  he  has  put  it  forever  beyond 
controversy  that  the  persistence  of  force,  the  indestructibility  of 
matter  and  the  fact  of  evolution  absolutely  shut  out  all  scientific 
evidence  of  the  existence  of  God  or  of  any  first  cause  or  absolute 
Being  as  the  ultimate  ground  of  the  universe ;  and  that,  though 
metaphysical  reasoning  on  the  subject  is  still  possible,  it  per¬ 
tains  to  an  unknowable  and  scientifically  illegitimate  object  of 
thought  and  yields  only  the  slightest  probability  that  some  such 

1  Aims  and  Instruments  of  Scientific  Thought,  Lectures  and  Essays,  vol.  i. 
pp.  149,  150. 


ever  sent  out  into  the  world  by 


246 


THE  SELE-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


being  may  exist.1  But  while  he  announces  his  conclusions  as 
the  result  of  rigidly  logical  processes,  an  examination  shows  that 
they  rest  on  the  assumption  that  empirical  science  is  the  only 
scientific  knowledge,  and  on  a  theory  of  the  relativity  of  knowl¬ 
edge  by  which  all  knowledge  is  invalidated.  Unlike  Mr.  Spen¬ 
cer,  who  sees  clearly  that  the  knowledge  that  some  absolute  Being 
exists  is  a  self-evident  and  necessary  law  of  thought,  Physicus  as¬ 
sumes  that  the  existence  of  the  absolute  can  be  known  only  by 
being  logically  proved  from  the  law  of  causation.  The  impos¬ 
sibility  of  this  proof  intelligent  theists  are  equally  decisive  in 
affirming.  Physicus  assumes  with  Mr.  Spencer  that  the  mind  is 
merely  a  series  of  states  of  consciousness.  Hence  he  infers  that 
the  theist,  by  his  hypothesis  of  the  divine  Mind  or  Reason  as  the 
first  cause  and  ultimate  ground  of  the  universe,  does  not  escape 
an  infinite  series  nor  reach  an  absolute  being  any  more  than 
the  materialist  does  ;  God  himself  would  be  merely  a  series  of 
states  of  consciousness.  If  we  admit,  what  everybody  practically 
believes  in  the  lace  of  all  theorizing,  that  a  man  has  knowledge 
of  himself  as  one  and  the  same  being  in  successive  states  of 
consciousness,  his  elaborate  reasoning  crumbles  into  utter  incon¬ 
clusiveness.  If  we  once  see  the  absurdity  which  is  involved  in 
Spencer’s  conception  of  the  mind,  that  separate  and  successive 
events  in  a  series  are  conscious  of  themselves  as  in  the  unity 
of  a  series  and  at  the  same  time  always  and  necessarily  mistake 
themselves  for  one  and  the  same  person  ;  if  we  admit  the  simple 
proposition  imperatively  demanded  alike  by  common  sense  and 
philosophy,  that  every  motion,  thought  and  action  must  be  the 
motion,  thought  or  action  of  a  being,  then  we  must  admit  the  ex¬ 
istence  of  the  absolute  Being,  as  the  eternal  principle  and  ground 
of  all  beginning  and  change,  of  all  finite  power,  knowledge  and 
being.  And  conversely,  if  no  absolute  Being  exists  as  the  ulti¬ 
mate  ground  of  all,  then  there  is  no  being  and  no  knowledge  ; 
but  all  knowledge  is  volatilized  into  a  phantasmagoria  of  noth¬ 
ingness.  An  examination  of  the  seemingly  exact  reasoning  of 
Physicus  shows  that  it  is  vitiated  by  the  false  theory  of  the  rela¬ 
tivity  of  knowledge  ;  and  that  its  conclusions  are  valid  only  on 
the  basis  of  the  complete  positivism  of  Comte,  who  clearly  saw 
and  plainly  affirmed  that  if  the  idea  of  force  or  cause  is  once 
admitted,  God  as  the  first  cause  will  have  to  be  admitted  with 
it.  Thus  we  are  brought  again  face  to  face  with  the  fact  that 
the  denial  of  the  knowledge  of  God,  the  absolute  Being,  involves 
the  denial  of  all  knowledge. 

1  Theism,  chap.  vi. 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  THE  UNIVERSE. 


247 


It  may  be  added,  that  if,  as  Physicus  assumes,  the  mere  ex¬ 
istence  and  persistence  of  matter  and  force  suggest  no  need  of 
a  beginning  or  cause,  but  permit  us  to  believe  them  eternal,  the 
equally  certain  fact  of  the  existence  and  persistence  of  reason 
suggests  no  necessity  for  a  cause,  but  permits  us  to  believe  that 
reason  is  eternal ;  and  eternal  reason  is  God. 

The  foregoing  objections  all  assume  that  the  existence  of  the 
absolute  Being  cannot  be  known  unless  it  is  proved,  and  that 
the  proof  must  rest  on  the  principle  that  every  beginning  or 
change  of  existence  must  have  a  cause.  They  have  held  a  large 
place  in  the  discussion  of  the  evidence  of  the  existence  of  God. 
And  theists  are  unable  to  refute  them  so  far  as  they  have  failed 
to  see  and  expose  the  fundamental  error  of  the  assumption  on 
which  the  objections  rest.  The  theists  have  not  been  shaken  in 
their  belief,  because  it  has  rested,  not  on  the  conclusiveness  of 
their  arguments,  but  on  a  necessary  law  of  thought,  which  under¬ 
lies  all  argument.  As  soon  as  the  true  ground  of  the  belief  of 
the  existence  of  the  absolute  Being  is  recognized,  every  one  of 
these  objections  falls  powerless.  Then  they  are  exposed  in 
their  real  significance,  as  striking  at  the  foundation  of  all  real 
knowledge.  Then  are  brought  into  clear  light  the  facts  that 
the  existence  of  absolute  Being  is  essential  to  the  reality  of  any 
being  and  to  the  possibility  of  any  knowledge  of  beings ;  and 
that  the  existence  of  absolute  Reason  is  essential  to  the  possibil¬ 
ity  of  any  reasonable  and  scientific  knowledge.  Thus  these  ob¬ 
jections  only  project  into  more  intense  light  the  imperative  de¬ 
mand  of  reason  for  the  existence  of  the  absolute,  unconditioned 
and  all-conditioning  Being. 

Before  leaving  this  topic  some  consideration  must  be  given  to 
the  question  whether  the  revelation  of  God  as  causal  power  of 
itself  conveys  any  intimation  of  his  personality. 

Some  philosophers  have  taught  that  the  idea  of  will  is  inhe¬ 
rent  and  essential  in  the  idea  of  an  efficient  cause,  because  the 
idea  of  power  and  cause  first  arises  in  the  exertion  of  our  own 
wills.  If  this  is  true  then,  if  we  have  evidence  that  the  uni¬ 
verse  has  a  cause,  we  rightly  infer  that  the  first  Cause  is  a 
rational  free  will,  that  is,  a  self-exertive  and  self-directive  power. 
But  in  the  premise  of  this  argument  the  origin  of  the  idea  of 
cause  seems  to  be  inadequately  set  forth.  As  in  one  and  the 
same  mental  state  one  has  knowledge  of  himself  as  knowing  and 
of  an  object  known,  so  in  a  voluntary  exertion  of  power  one  is 
conscious  in  one  and  the  same  act  of  his  own  exertion  of  power 


248 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


and  of  a  power  from  without  which  acts  upon  him.  In  rolling 
a  heavy  stone  one  is  conscious  at  once  of  his  own  power  and 
of  the  resistance  of  the  stone.  Thus  in  the  very  origin  of  the 
id  ea  of  causal  efficiency  or  power  we  have  knowledge  of  it  both 
in  ourselves  and  as  acting  on  us  from  without.  Therefore 
from  the  origin  of  our  idea  of  causal  power  we  can  no  more 
infer  that  there  is  no  cause  but  will,  than  we  can  infer  from  the 
origin  of  knowledge  that  the  only  objects  of  knowledge  are  sub¬ 
jective  ideas  and  that  all  reality  is  comprehended  within  the 
sphere  of  one’s  own  self-consciousness. 

But  the  origin  of  the  idea  of  causal  efficiency  does  establish  so 
much  as  this  :  that  the  knowledge  of  free  power  is  given  in  the 
very  origin  of  our  knowledge  of  power  ;  and  that  thus  in  this 
very  origin  is  laid  the  foundation  for  the  distinction  which  cleaves 
all  human  thought,  whether  scientific  or  popular,  between  a  per¬ 
sonal  agent  self-directive  and  self-exertive  and  a  body  which  is 
the  unconscious  vehicle  of  conveying  a  force  previously  commu¬ 
nicated  from  without.  The  free  or  personal  cause  as  distinguished 
from  physical  force  cannot  be  excluded  from  the  powers  known 
in  the  universe. 

It  follows  that  there  is  no  place  for  dogmatic  materialism, 
which  denies  free  will,  and  which  affirms  that  all  power  in  the 
universe  is  merely  physical,  or  even  that  the  universe  is  mere 
mechanism  and  the  only  power  in  it  is  mechanical  motor-force. 
The  consciousness  of  free  power  is  given  in  the  consciousness  of 
power ;  if  either  is  to  be  denied  it  must  be  the  physical  power 
external  to  and  acting  on  us,  rather  than  the  free  power  which  is 
inherent  in  us  and  known  in  our  consciousness  of  ourselves. 

This  refutes  dogmatic  materialism  also  in  its  arbitrary  and 
unwarranted  assertion  that  in  the  ultimate  cause  or  ground  of 
the  universe  rational  free  power  does  not  exist.  There  is  noth¬ 
ing  in  causal  efficiency  which  excludes  from  the  first  Cause  ra¬ 
tional  free  will ;  on  the  contrary,  it  includes  it. 

We  must  advance  a  step  further.  Physical  things  which  cause 
effects  are  mere  vehicles  which  convey  and  communicate  a  force 
imparted  from  another.  In  the  strict  sense  of  the  words  they 
neither  exert  nor  direct  the  force  which  they  communicate.  But 
so  long  as,  in  observing  physical  things,  the  mind  finds  that  they 
only  communicate  a  force  which  they  had  previously  received,  it 
cannot  rest  in  them  as  the  real  and  ultimate  cause.  It  can  rest 
only  when  it  finds  a  cause  which  itself  exerts  and  directs  the 
force  which  it  imparts.  The  ultimate  cause,  therefore,  must  be 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  THE  UNIVERSE. 


249 


self-exertive  and  self -directive  ;  in  other  words,  it  must  be  a 
rational,  personal  spirit.  All  physical  causation,  therefore,  seems 
necessarily  to  carry  us  back  to  spirit  as  its  first  cause.  In  this 
conception  the  mind  rests. 

Some  theists  incline  to  the  position  that  all  acts  of  physical 
force  in  nature  are  immediate  acts  of  God’s  will.  But  if  the 
action  of  physical  force  is  the  action  of  will,  then  will  and  phys¬ 
ical  force  seem  to  be  identified,  and  the  distinction  between  the 
two,  so  sharply  marked  in  every  act  of  man  on  nature,  is  lost ; 
the  distinction  between  God  and  the  universe  is  lost,  and  we 
fall  into  the  pantheistic  conception  of  God  as  unconscious  spirit 
identical  with  the  universe.  The  true  and  theistic  conception  is, 
not  that  all  physical  force  is  the  immediate  action  of  God’s  will, 
but  that,  as  we  observe  its  action  in  the  course  of  nature,  we  are 
obliged* to  refer  it  ultimately  to  the  rational  will  of  the  eternal 
Spirit  as  its  first  cause. 

We  find  that  the  absolute  Being  reveals  himself  in  the  uni¬ 
verse  as  its  first  cause,  the  original  source  of  all  its  power.  In 
the  words  of  Mr.  Spencer,  the  theist  has  attained  “the  one  abso¬ 
lute  certainty  that  he  is  in  the  presence  of  an  Infinite  and  Eter¬ 
nal  Energy  from  which  all  things  proceed.”  And  the  powers 
acting  in  the  universe?.¥eveal  him,  and  help  us  to  form  some  idea 
of  that  power  which  is  forever  immeasurable. 

And  the  physical  force  energizing  in  the  course  of  nature  does 
of  itself  carry  the  thought  back  to  mind  or  spirit,  to  rational 
power,  self-exertive  and  self-directive,  as  the  original  first  cause 
of  all  the  forces  and  the  course  of  nature.  Accordingly  Dr.  Car¬ 
penter  says  :  “  Science  points  to  the  origination  of  all  power  in 
mind.  This  is  no  new  doctrine.  ...  It  is  as  old  as  Socrates. 
But  I  think  it  derives  new  importance  from  the  recent  develop¬ 
ment  of  the  dynamic  philosophy,  which  looks  at  matter  as  the 
mere  vehicle  of  force,  and  regards  the  various  modes  of  force  as 
convertible.”  “  The  deep-seated  instincts  of  humanity  and  the 
profoundest  researches  of  philosophy  alike  point  to  Mind  as  the 
one  and  only  source  of  power.”1  Mr.  Grove  says:  “Causation 
is  the  will,  Creation  is  the  Power  of  God.”2  Sir  John  Herschel 
says  :  “  It  is  but  reasonable  to  regard  the  force  of  gravitation 
as  the  direct  or  indirect  result  of  a  consciousness  and  a  will 
•existing  somewhere.”  3  These  are  utterances  of  scientists.  Shel- 

1  Mind  and  Will  in  Nature,  Cont.  Rev.  1872;  Address,  Brit.  Association, 
1872. 

2  Correlation  of  Forces,  p.  199.  3  Quoted,  Bray  on  Force,  p.  64. 


250 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


ley  gives  poetical  utterance  to  the  human  consciousness  which 
even  in  his  speculative  atheism  he  did  not  escape :  — 

“  The  awful  shadow  of  some  unseen  Power 
Floats,  though  unseen,  among  us.” 

It  is  sometimes  said  by  theistic  writers  that  the  assaults  of  ag¬ 
nosticism  have  compelled  human  reason  to  abate  its  pretensions 
as  to  knowledge  of  the  supernatural.  It  is  true  that  on  rational 
grounds  and  in  accordance  with  the  teachings  of  Christianity 
from  the  beginning,  theologians  are  learning  —  that  great  part  of 
human  wisdom  —  equanimity  in  being  ignorant  as  to  many  de¬ 
tails  of  God’s  relation  to  the  world  and  his  action  in  it,  in  being 
unable  to  picture  the  mode  in  which  God  reveals  himself  in  the 
finite,  and  in  refraining  from  excessive  refining  and  defining. 
But  the  discussion  of  the  current  skepticism  has  issued  in  a  clearer 
apprehension  and  higher  appreciation  of  the  powers  of  the  human 
reason  in  its  deeper  significance.  It  is  more  and  more  fixing  at¬ 
tention  on  the  facts  that  the  ultimate  ground  of  the  universe  is 
the  absolute  Reason  that  is  ever  energizing  in  it ;  that  this  is 
essential  to  the  reality  of  the  universe  and  to  the  possibility  of 
scientific  knowledge  of  it ;  that  human  reason  is  cognizant  of  ulti¬ 
mate,  self-evident  principles,  which  are  constituent  elements  of  all 
rationality ;  that  all  science  postulates  thej^ruth  and  universality 
of  these  principles ;  that  it  is  continually  verifying  this  postula¬ 
tion  by  discovering  that  the  universe  is  constituted  in  accordance 
with  them  and  with  the  inferences  from  observed  facts  which 
these  principles  require  ;  that  reason  in  harmony  with  human  rea¬ 
son  pervades  and  directs  the  universe,  and  thus  makes  human  sci¬ 
ence  possible  ;  that  human  reason  is  in  the  likeness  of  the  divine, 
and  therefore  capable  of  receiving  and  interpreting  the  revelation 
of  God. 

In  this  chapter  we  have  considered  only  the  existence  of  the 
physical  world  and  of  its  forces  as  they  act  in  nature.  We  have 
found  them  always  forcing  our  minds  back  to  a  cause  antecedent 
to  themselves  ;  as  we  trace  them  backwards  we  have  found  them 
converging  on  a  first  cause  as  their  common  origin  and  revealing 
its  power  ;  and  even  carrying  the  thought  to  mind  or  spirit  as 
their  common  source,  “sloping  through  darkness  up  to  God." 
This,  however,  is  but  the  beginning  of  the  evidence  which  nature 
gives  of  what  the  absolute  Being  is.  We  are  next  to  consider 
what  further  and  clearer  evidence  it  presents  that  the  absolute 
Being  is  the  energizing  Reason,  the  eternal  Spirit,  the  personal 
God. 


CHAPTER  XII. 


GOD  REVEALED  AS  PERSONAL  SPIRIT  IN  THE  CONSTITU¬ 
TION  AND  COURSE  OF  NATURE. 

Professor  T.  H.  Green  has  felicitously  described  philoso¬ 
phy  as  the  result  of  “  a  progressive  effort  toward  a  fully  articu¬ 
lated  conception  of  the  world  as  rational.”  This  conception  is 
true  only  if  the  universe  is  grounded  in  reason  and  the  absolute 
Being  manifested  in  it  is  the  absolute  Reason,  the  eternal  Spirit, 
the  personal  God.  Theism  is  the  basis  and  the  only  basis  on 
which  such  a  philosophy  is  possible. 

We  have  already  ascertained  that  the  absolute  Being  exists 
and  manifests  itself  in  the  universe  as  the  first  Cause  or  absolute 
Power  from  which  it  proceeds  and  on  which  it  depends.  We  are 
next  to  consider  the  evidence  of  the  presence  and  directive  action 
of  reason  in  the  universe,  in  which  the  absolute  Power  reveals 
itself  as  the  personal  God. 

The  evidence  of  this  in  the  spiritual  system  as  known  to  us  in 
the  constitution  and  history  of  man  will  be  examined  hereafter. 
In  this  chapter  only  the  evidence  from  the  physical  system  will 
be  considered. 

This  evidence  is  called  by  Kant  the  Physico-theological  Argu¬ 
ment.  This  name  properly  denotes  all  the  evidence  in  the  phys¬ 
ical  system  of  the  existence  of  a  personal  God.  It  is  the  evidence 
or  proof  that  nature  exists  in  the  unity  of  a  reasonable  and  scien¬ 
tific  system,  that  in  the  constitution  and  course  of  nature  rational 
«/ 

ideas,  laws  and  ends  are  disclosed  and  the  presence  and  direction 
of  Reason  are  revealed,  and  that  thus  the  absolute  Being,  whose 
power  is  manifested  in  the  universe,  is  revealed  to  be  the  absolute 
Reason,  the  personal  God. 

Here  we  take  another  step  in  attaining  knowledge  of  what  the 
absolute  Being  is.  Yet  it  is  but  one  step  and  not  the  whole  rev¬ 
elation.  Since  impersonal  beings  are  not  responsible  subjects  of 
moral  law,  we  do  not  look  in  the  sphere  of  the  impersonal  for 
the  primary  and  principal  evidence  of  the  righteousness  and 
benevolence  of  God.  It  is  important  to  notice  this,  because  many 


252 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


of  the  objections  against  this  evidence  spring  from  misconceiving 
its  scope,  as  if,  because  it  does  not  prove  everything  for  theism,  it 
proves  nothing.  The  revelation  of  God  from  each  source  ex¬ 
plains,  confirms,  and  enlarges  the  revelation  from  every  other. 
It  is  God’s  revelation  of  himself  through  various  media,  one  con¬ 
tinuous  revelation,  to  be  completed  for  man  only  with  the  com¬ 
pletion  of  human  history. 

Trendelenburg  says :  kt  The  so-called  proofs  of  the  existence  of 
God  have  worth  only  as  points  of  view  which  cannot  be  under¬ 
stood  without  the  absolute.  They  are  indirect  proofs  which  de¬ 
velop  the  ground-theme  of  the  unconditioned.  .  .  .  They  point  out 
what  confusion  must  arise  if  we  do  not  postulate  the  existence  of 
God.  In  this  they  have  their  constraining  power.”  1 

But  he  himself  affirms  that  we  have  a  positive  knowledge  of 
the  absolute  Being.  Therefore  the  so-called  proofs  are  the  exam¬ 
ination  of  the  universe  to  ascertain  in  it  what  the  Absolute  has 
revealed  itself  to  be.  Also  we  have  the  revelation  of  God  in  con¬ 
sciousness  through  which  he  is  known  in  experience.  These  are 
not  indirect  proofs.  Further,  in  the  cosmological  proof  we  find 
the  absolute  revealed  in  the  universe  as  Power ;  and  in  the  phys- 
ico-theological  proof,  as  Reason.  These  are  simple  inferences 
from  the  nature  of  the  effect  to  the  character  of  the  cause.  The 
latter  of  these  two  proofs  is  in  fact  a  Newtonian  induction,  ascer¬ 
taining  the  cause  from  the  effect  by  hypothesis,  deduction  and 
verification.  These  are  not  indirect  proofs,  but  direct,  the  same 
as  are  employed  in  science.  It  must  be  added  that  the  indirect 
proof  itself  is  valid.  This  is  denied  by  some.  Professor  Sidg- 
wick,  for  example,  says :  “  The  mere  fact  that  I  cannot  act  ra¬ 
tionally  without  assuming  a  Certain  proposition,  does  not  appear 
to  me,  as  it  does  to  some  minds,  a  sufficient  reason  for  believing 
it  to  be  true.”  2  But  it  seems  incontrovertible  that  reason  must 
accept  as  true  every  principle,  the  truth  of  which  is  necessary 
to  its  own  rationality  and  capacity  of  knowing.  If  the  rejection 
of  a  proposition  involves  the  confusion  of  reason  itself,  that  cer¬ 
tainly  is  valid  ground  for  accepting  it  as  true.  And  this  indirect 
proof  itself  rests  on  direct  and  positive  knowledge.  It  is  only 
when  the  rejection  of  a  proposition  involves  contradiction  of  a 
universal  principle  of  reason  and  necessary  law  of  thought  that 
its  rejection  involves  the  confusion  of  reason. 

At  the  outset  we  are  met  with  objections  warning  us  off  from 
this  investigation  as  unscientific  and  illegitimate. 

1  Logisclie  Untersuchuugen,  vol.  ii.  p.  339. 

2  Methods  of  Ethics,  p.  471. 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  NATURE. 


253 


It  is  objected  that  the  idea  of  God  as  a  rational  power  or  per¬ 
sonal  being  is  not  a  scientific  idea  and  therefore  is  not  admissible 
in  a  hypothesis.  But  the  true  cause  required  in  a  hypothesis  is 
merely  one  of  a  kind  already  known ;  or  at  least  its  component 
elements  must  be  of  a  kind  already  known.  This  is  true  of  the 
idea  of  God.  We  know  power;  we  know  reason  as  well  as  we 
know  power ;  we  know  ourselves  and  our  fellow-men  as  personal 
beings ;  and  we  know  the  absolute  in  a  necessary  intuition  of 
reason.  Therefore  the  hypothesis  that  the  universe  reveals  the 
absolute  Being  energizing  in  the  light  and  under  the  direction  of 
reason  is  scientifically  legitimate.  And  if  it  is  found  that  the 
facts  and  law^s  of  nature  can  be  accounted  for  and  known  in  the 
unity  of  a  system  by  this  hypothesis  and  not  as  well  accounted 
for  and  systemized  by  any  other,  the  theistic  hypothesis  is  veri¬ 
fied.  The  objection,  that  it  is  not  verified  till  God  is  brought 
under  the  observation  of  the  senses,  is  not  scientific.  It  is  not 
demanded  in  scientific  verification.  The  hypotheses  by  which 
science  explains  light,  heat,  electricity,  molecular  action  of  every 
kind,  gravitation,  the  origin  of  fossils,  the  makers  of  stone  imple¬ 
ments,  are  all  verified  and  accepted  as  established  without  any 
observation  of  the  agents  supposed  to  be  the  causes  of  the  ob¬ 
served  effects.  Our  proposed  investigation  of  the  evidence  of  a 
directing  reason  in  nature  will  be  a  verification  of  the  theistic 
hypothesis.  It  must  also  be  remembered  that  agnostics,  pan¬ 
theists  and  materialists  acknowledge  the  existence  of  an  absolute 
Being  and  construct  hypotheses  or  theories  of  the  constitution  of 
the  universe  accordingly.  The  objection,  therefore,  can  be  urged 
consistently  only  by  complete  positivists  or  phenomenalists,  who 
deny  all  knowledge  of  the  existence  of  the  absolute  Being  and, 
by  logical  necessity,  of  all  beings.  And  their  position  is  itself 
rejected  as  unscientific  by  scientists  themselves. 

It  is  objected  further  that  the  idea  of  rational,  free  personality 
is  itself  unscientific  and*  illegitimate,  because  it  involves  the  su¬ 
pernatural  and  therefore  transcends  the  uniformity  and  continuity 
of  nature. 

The  answer  is  that  rationality  and  free  choice  are  indisputable 
facts,  known  in  the  same  way  in  which  force  and  bodies  are 
known,  that  is,  in  our  own  consciousness.  Science  recognizes 
them  as  facts  and  declares  that  they  are  phenomena  which  can¬ 
not  be  identified  with  motion,  and  that  all  the  discoveries  respect¬ 
ing  brain  and  nerve  leave  thought,  volition  and  all  mental  phe¬ 
nomena  as  completely  unexplained  as  ever.  It  is  then  unscien- 


254 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


tific  to  exclude  these  facts  from  science.  It  is  the  condition  on 
which  science  stands  or  falls  that  it  takes  up  all  known  facts  and 
brings  them  under  its  laws.  A  so-called  science  which  accepts 
matter  and  force  as  the  only  reality,  breaks  down  if  it  fails  to 
explain  by  matter  and  force  all  the  facts  which  come  under  ob¬ 
servation.  The  only  scientific  course  is  to  recognize  these  facts 
of  rationality  and  free  will,  and  when  confessedly  they  cannot  be 
explained  by  matter  and  force,  then  to  admit  that  some  other 
agent  transcending  matter  and  force  is  revealed  in  them.  The 
doctrine  that  there  is  nothing  in  the  universe  but  matter  and 
force  is  a  mere  assumption,  which  cannot  stand  in  the  presence  of 
rationality  and  free  will  revealing  rational  free  personality.  And 
the  attempt  thus  to  construct  a  theory  of  the  universe  always 
issues  in  a  silent  change  of  the  essential  meaning  of  the  words 
matter  and  force. 

It  is  not  uncommon  for  scientists  to  acknowledge  the  distinction 
between  the  physical  and  the  spiritual  and  yet  to  insist  that  both 
must  be  included  in  nature  ;  and  they  use  nature  as  synonymous 
with  the  realm  of  law,  and  the  supernatural  as  synonymous  with 
a  realm  without  law.  Here  it  becomes  a  question  as  to  the  use 
of  words.  On  the  one  hand,  the  scientist,  when  he  has  given 
the  name,  nature,  both  to  the  physical  system  and  the  spiritual 
or  personal,  is  immediately  confronted  with  the  old  distinction 
of  mind  and  matter,  and  all  the  old  questions  and  difficulties 
come  back  on  him.  He  has  gained  nothing  but  to  hide  the  facts 
from  his  own  eyes.  On  the  other  hand,  the  theist,  recognizing 
both  the  spiritual  system  and  the  physical  or  natural,  insists  as 
strenuously  as  the  scientist  that  both  are  under  the  reign  of  law. 
In  fact  while  the  scientist  accepts  the  order,  uniformity  and  con¬ 
tinuity  of  nature  under  law  merely  as  a  necessary  but  inexplic¬ 
able  fact,  theism,  by  showing  that  the  universe  is  grounded  in 
reason  and  is  the  expression  or  revelation  of  its  eternal  and  un¬ 
changing  principles,  laws,  ideals  and  ends,  not  only  affirms  the 
universal  reign  of  law  but  shows  also  why  it  must  be  universal. 
Theism  also  shows  the  unity  of  the  spiritual  and  the  natural  in 
one  all-comprehending  system,  by  the  fact  that  the  natural  is 
subordinate  to  the  spiritual  as  the  expression  of  its  principles 
and  ideas,  as  regulated  by  its  laws,  and  progressively  realizing 
its  rational  ideals  and  ends.  Theism  shows  for  the  universe, 
spiritual  and  physical,  one  Cause,  one  Power,  one  universal  Rea¬ 
son,  one  end  in  the  realization  of  the  rational  archetypes  of  all 
wisdom  and  love.  Here  are  a  unity  at  once  dynamic  and  ra- 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  NATURE. 


255 


tional,  and  a  uniformity  and  continuity  comprehensive  as  the  do¬ 
main  of  the  universal  Reason,  and  fixed  and  unchangeable  as 
its  eternal  principles  and  laws.  This  is  u  a  fully  articulated  con¬ 
ception  of  the  world  as  rational.”  This,  more  than  any  other 
conception,  accords  with  J.  S.  Mill’s  law,  that  science  must 
always  ask:  “ What  are  the  fewest  and  simplest  assumptions, 
which  being  granted,  the  existing  order  of  nature  would  follow?” 

The  principle  on  which  the  physico- theological  argument  de¬ 
pends  is  simply  that  there  must  be  an  adequate  cause  for  every 
effect.  As  we  know  the  personal  and  therein  the  supernatural 
in  our  knowledge  of  ourselves,  we  can  recognize  it  when  revealed 
in  action,  just  as  we  know  power  in  our  knowledge  of  ourselves 
and  can  recognize  it  when  it  is  revealed  in  action. 

This  evidence  or  proof  of  mind  revealed  in  nature  is  often 
called  the  teleological  argument,  or  the  argument  from  final 
causes.  This  assumes  that  the  whole  evidence  is  exhausted  in 
showing  that  many  arrangements  in  nature  subserve  a  good  end  ; 
or  still  narrower,  that  they  are  useful  to  man.  This  is  but  a 
small  part  of  the  physico-theological  evidence.  A  large  part  of 
the  objections  against  this  evidence  are  founded  on  this  narrow 
view  of  it  and  would  have  no  force  against  it  rightly  understood. 

The  physical  system  manifests  the  presence  and  direction  of 
reason.  In  this  manifestation  the  absolute  Being,  already  re¬ 
vealed  as  the  Power  working  in  the  universe,  is  further  revealed 
as  a  rational  Power,  that  is,  as  the  personal  God. 

The  evidence  of  this  revelation  in  the  physical  system  may  be 
presented  under  five  heads,  of  which  the  four  first  correspond  to 
the  four  fundamental  ideas  or  norms  of  reason,  the  True,  the 
Right,  the  Perfect,  and  the  Good. 

1.  Nature  is  symbolic;  it  expresses  thought. 

2.  Nature  is  orderly,  or  uniform  and  continuous  under  law. 

3.  Nature  is  progressive  toward  the  realization  of  ideals. 

4.  Nature  is  telic,  being  subordinate  to  the  spiritual  or  personal 
svstem  and  subservient  to  its  ends. 

•J 

5.  Nature  is  in  harmony  and  unity  with  the  spiritual  system 
under  the  true  law  of  continuity. 

Under  each  of  these  heads  the  evidence  of  mind  mav  be  found 

%j 

in  the  constitution  and  action  of  particular  objects,  as  the  eye, 
and  their  adaptation  to  other  objects  ;  and  in  the  unity  of  system 
in  the  constitution  and  course  of  nature  and  its  progressive  evo¬ 
lution,  as  a  whole. 

Examples  of  the  revelation  of  mind  in  nature  are  innumerable  ; 


256 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


for  it  is  the  whole  physical  universe  through  which  the  revelation 
is  made,  and  in  every  branch  of  physical  science  examples  abound. 
Diderot  hardly  put  it  too  strongly  when  he  maintained  that  one 
could  slay  the  atheist  with  a  butterfly’s  wing  or  the  eye  of  a 
gnat,  and  still  have  in  reserve  the  weight  of  the  universe  with 
which  to  crush  him.  It  is  needless  therefore  to  dwell  on  exam¬ 
ples.  It  is  sufficient  to  indicate  the  different  lines  of  evidence. 

I.  Nature  symbolic.  —  Nature  is  symbolic ;  it  expresses 
thought ;  it  is  significant  of  ideas. 

First,  this  is  implied  in  the  fact  that  outward  objects  can  be 
apprehended  by  the  mind  in  ideas  which  are  their  intellectual 
equivalents. 

Ever  since  philosophical  thought  began  thinkers  have  been 
perplexed  with  the  question  how  it  is  possible  for  a  mind  to  ap¬ 
prehend  a  material  thing ;  how  that  which  is  pure  intelligence 
can  apprehend  that  which  is  solid  matter  ;  how  stones,  trees  and 
other  material  things,  which  have  not  the  distinctive  qualities  of 
mind,  can  be  apprehended  in  ideas  which  have  no  resemblance  to 
the  objects  and  are  yet  their  intellectual  equivalents  through 
which  the  mind  knows  them.  To  remove  this  difficulty  various 
fruitless  suppositions  have  been  suggested,  as,  for  example,  that 
ethereal  images  of  the  objects  in  some  way  enter  the  mind.  The 
mind  seems  to  demand  that,  in  every  apprehension  of  an  outward 
object  in  an  idea,  some  inherent  relation  of  the  object  to  the 
idea,  some  likeness  between  them,  some  inherent  ideal  signifi¬ 
cance  in  the  object  must  be  presupposed.  The  object  must  in 
some  way  be  symbolic  of  the  idea  or  thought. 

When  an  object  acts  on  the  sensorium  and  reveals  itself  in  a 
sensation,  the  mind  reacts  in  its  power  of  intelligence  and  per¬ 
ceives  the  object,  knows  it  in  the  forms  of  reason,  and  in  thought 
apprehends  it  in  an  idea.  This  object,  therefore,  is  revealed  to 
the  mind  not  merely  as  an  external  object  occupying  space,  but 
also  as  having  the  quality  of  intelligibility;  it  is  capable  of  being 
apprehended  in  an  idea  and,  through  this  as  its  intellectual 
equivalent,  of  being  known.  It  being  revealed  to  the  mind  as 
an  object,  it  is  also  revealed  as  an  intelligible  or  knowable  ob¬ 
ject.  And  this  is  involved  in  the  fundamental  law  of  thought 
that  knowledge  implies  a  subject  knowing,  an  object  known  and 
the  knowledge  which  is  the  relation  between  them. 

But  the  object  was  susceptible  of  being  apprehended  in  intel¬ 
ligence,  before  I  perceived  and  apprehended  it.  It  had  a  quality 
of  ideality,  that  is,  of  being  apprehended  in  an  idea,  before  I  had 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  NATURE. 


257 


any  idea  of  it  in  ray  consciousness.  Every  object  in  nature, 
therefore,  is  inherently  and  essentially  intelligible.  But  the 
ideality  of  the  object,  its  susceptibility  of  being  apprehended  in 
an  intellectual  equivalent,  exists  in  the  object  independent  of 
man’s  conscious  apprehension  of  it.  We  may  therefore  say  that 
the  idea  of  the  object  existing  subjective  in  my  consciousness  of 
it,  existed  objective  and  independent  of  my  consciousness  in  the 
object ;  existed  potentially,  waiting  only  the  presence  of  a  mind 
in  order  to  be  revealed.  Thus  the  object  presupposes  its  idea. 
Hence  we  may  truly  say  that  the  object  is  symbolic,  it  expresses 
thought ;  when  presented  to  a  conscious  mind  the  object  reveals 
itself  as  having  significance  to  thought,  it  calls  forth  in  the  con¬ 
scious  mind  an  idea  which  is  the  intellectual  equivalent  of  the 
object.  As  sensation  gives  no  intelligence  except  as  the  intellect 
reacts  in  perception  of  the  object  and  then  apprehends  it  in  an 
idea ;  so,  on  the  other  hand,  the  object  could  not  be  apprehended 
by  intelligence  if  it  had  not  already  ideality  in  itself ;  that  is,  the 
quality  of  intelligibility  and  the  capacity  of  being  apprehended 
in  its  idea.  Hence  through  sensation  the  mind  is  revealed  to 
itself  as  intelligent,  and  the  intelligibility  or  ideality  of  the 
object  is  revealed  to  the  mind.  As  a  visible  spark  reveals  the 
invisible  ether  which  causes  it,  and  its  crackling  reveals  the 
unseen  undulations  which  cause  the  sound,  so  the  sensation  re¬ 
veals  the  supersensible  sphere  of  intelligence  both  in  the  person 
perceiving  and  in  the  object  perceived. 

Non-theistic  philosophies  fail  to  give  any  reasonable  explana¬ 
tion  of  the  fact  that  the  mind  apprehends  material  objects  in 
ideas.  Theism  alone  gives  a  reasonable  explanation.1  It  rec¬ 
ognizes  material  things  as  real  beings  ;  they  are  not  indepen¬ 
dent,  but  are  creations  of  God,  the  conscious,  personal  absolute 
Reason  ;  in  creating  them  he  has  expressed  or  revealed  in  them 
his  archetypal  thought  under  the  limits  of  space  and  time. 
Thus  they  are  in  their  essence  symbols  ;  that  is,  they  express 
the  thought  of  their  creator,  as  a  steam-engine  expresses  and 
reveals  the  thought  of  its  maker,  or  as  written  words  express 
the  thought  of  the  writer.  This  accords  with  the  true  meaning 
of  the  maxim,  “  Like  is  known  only  by  like.”  Objects  which 
are  the  creation  and  expression  of  thought  can  be  apprehended 
by  thought.  Material  things  can  be  apprehended  in  ideas  be¬ 
cause  they  are,  in  themselves  and  their  relations,  expressions  of 
ideas,  that  is,  of  the  archetypal  thought  of  God.  Being  them- 

1  Phil.  Basis  of  Theism,  pp.  89,  99. 

17 


258 


THE  SELF-EE YELATION  OF  GOD. 


selves  the  expression  of  thought  they  reveal  themselves  as  such 
and  return  to  their  primal  form  as  thought  or  idea  in  the  mind 
to  which  they  are  presented.  The  idea  is  thus  objectively  real, 
independently  of  the  consciousness  of  the  observer ;  not  in  itself 
nor  in  the  object,  but  as  the  archetypal  thought  of  the  eternal 
Reason  expressed  in  the  object.1 

In  this  sense  every  material  object  is  symbolic  of  the  arche¬ 
typal  thought  of  God  ;  and  the  objective  reality  of  its  idea  is  in¬ 
dependent  of  the  consciousness  of  the  observer,  and  has  an  intel¬ 
ligible  and  real  significance,  which  it  lacks  in  every  non-theistic 
philosophy. 

This  gives  us,  also,  the  real  significance  of  the  maxim  that 
whatever  is  real  is  rational.  Its  real  meaning  is  that  whatever 
is  real  is  essentially  intelligible ;  it  has  the  quality  of  intelligible¬ 
ness  or  ideality.  And  this  is  true,  even  when,  through  lack  of 
information  or  opportunity,  we  may  be  at  present  ignorant  re¬ 
specting  it.  All  science  rests  on  this  assumption  ;  for  it  assumes 
that  whatever  is  real  is  a  legitimate  object  of  scientific  investiga¬ 
tion  and  may  be  scientifically  known.  Science  and  practical 
wisdom  would  alike  be  impossible  and  inconceivable,  if  the  world 
were  unreasonable,  a  lawless  chaos,  not  rationally  ordered,  and 
therefore  not  capable  of  being  rationally  understood.  Scientific 
knowledge  is  possible  only  on  the  presupposition  of  rational  co¬ 
herence,  arrangement  and  direction.  So  Hegel  says  :  “  The  form 
of  the  natural  is  nature  as  pervaded  by  thought  :  ”  2  That  is,  the 
only  form  in  which  a  scientific  comprehension  of  nature  is  possi¬ 
ble  is  the  form  of  nature  as  pervaded,  arranged  and  ordered  by 
intelligence. 

We  see  also  the  real  significance  of  the  old  phrase,  Mundus  In - 
telligibilis  or  K 6<t[ao<;  No^to?,  which  denotes  the  objective  reality 
of  the  idea  of  the  world  as  archetypal  and  eternal.  If  every  ob¬ 
ject  in  nature  has  the  quality  of  intelligibility  and  so  has  its  ideal 
side,  the  universe  itself  has  the  same  quality  and  presupposes  its 
idea  ;  and  its  idea  would  be  the  universe  of  archetypal  thought 
of  which  the  existing  universe  is  the  progressive  expression  or 

1  “  When  the  sculptor  develops  his  Apollo  or  his  Venus  from  the  quarried 
marble,  it  is  his  own  creation  and  has  his  image  stamped  on  it;  but  the  truth 
which  the  man  of  science  extracts  has  an  absolute  character  of  its  own,  which 
no  power  of  genius  can  transform  and  which  is  neither  attributable  to  accident 
nor  born  of  human  parentage.  It  pervades  the  meanest  chip  of  stone  which 
the  artist  rejects.”  —  Ideality  of  Physical  Science ,  by  Professor  Ben j.  Peirce, 
of  Harvard,  p.  26. 

2  Philosophic  der  Kelhnon,  vol.  i.  p.  275. 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  NATURE. 


259 


revelation.  We  study  the  universe  and  find  in  it  the  Mundus 

«/ 

Intelligibilis ,  the  world  of  archetypal  thought.  Science  is  noth¬ 
ing  but  the  enunciation  of  what  this  world  of  archetypal  thought 
revealed  in  universe  is.  If  this  world  of  ideas  were  known  to 
exist  without  the  universe  that  reveals  it,  we  should  necessarily 
believe  that  it  existed  as  the  thought  or  idea  of  some  mind  ;  for 
thought  or  idea  without  a  mind  is  as  unthinkable  and  as  impos¬ 
sible  as  motion  without  a  body  which  moves  and  a  force  which 
moves  it.  And  this  inference  is  not  the  less  necessary  because 
we  find  the  archetypal  universe  progressively  revealed  in  the  act¬ 
ual  universe  which  is  its  expression,  the  book  in  which  we  read 
it,  the  word  of  God  which  declares  it.  On  the  contrary  all  the 
more  must  we  infer  that  the  universe  itself  is  the  product  of  an 
efficient  mind  or  energizing  Reason  progressively  expressing  in 
it  his  archetypal  thoughts. 

We  see,  then,  that  nature  is  symbolic  ;  it  is  the  expression  or 
revelation  of  thought.  And  the  thought  is  presupposed  in  the 
existence  of  nature  and  must  be  archetypal  in  the  eternal  Reason 
that  is  revealing  itself  in  it. 

In  this  discussion  we  see  the  starting  point  and  significance  of 
Plato’s  doctrine  of  ideas.  He  recognizes  the  objective  intelligi¬ 
bility  or  ideality  of  all  things,  existing  independent  of  his  own 
conscious  apprehension  of  them.  He  thus  recognizes  the  fact 
that  the  object  presupposes  its  idea  existing  independent  of  the 
consciousness  of  the  human  percipient.  These  ideas,  presup¬ 
posed  in  the  objects  and  appearing  in  the  consciousness  of  the 
observer,  he  recognizes  as  eternal  ideas  which  are  at  once  the 
forms  of  thought  and  the  forms  of  things.  So  far  his  doctrine  is 
true  ;  and  by  virtue  of  this  great  truth  his  philosophy  has  held 
its  place  and  influence  in  human  thought  through  the  ages.  The 
theist  finds  the  reality  and  significance  of  these  ideas  in  the 
archetypal  thought  of  God. 

Hegel  also  recognizes  the  objective  reality  of  the  idea.  His 
recognition  of  the  universe  as  the  revelation  of  thought  is  the 
truth  which  gives  the  value  to  his  philosophy,  opening  to  various 
applications  which  are  helpful  to  theistic  thought.  But  his  funda¬ 
mental  and  fatal  error  is  that  the  idea  or  thought  is  not  referred 
to  the  personal  Reason  or  Spirit.  “  The  essence  of  nature  as  a 
system  of  laws  is  nothing  other  than  the  generic  or  universal 
(Das  Allgemeine ).”  1  The  essence  or  ultimate  ground  of  the  uni¬ 
verse  is  thought,  or  the  objective  Idea.  The  idea  is  creative, 

1  Philosophic  der  Religion,  vol.  i.  p.  275. 


260 


THE  SELF-RE YELAT10N  OF  GOD. 


evolving  itself  into  the  universe.  But  it  is  impersonal  and  un¬ 
conscious,  it  is  the  abstract  logical  general  notion,  the  widest 
possible.  And  this  logical  general  notion,  the  universal,  is  treated 
as  a  creative  idea,  which  has  unfolded  itself  into  the  universe  and 
eventually  has  come  to  consciousness  in  man.  The  world-process 
by  which  it  has  evolved  itself  into  the  universe  is  identical  with  a 
process  of  logic.  Thus  we  are  abandoned  to  idealistic  pantheism. 
And  ultimately  the  idea  comes  to  be  confounded  with  subjective 
conscious  thought  and  the  universe  itself  is  lost  in  subjective 
idealism.  Here,  as  a  witty  writer  suggests,  is  a  catastrophe  the 
reverse  of  that  of  Korah  ;  the  earth  has  not  swallowed  up  the 
man,  but  the  man  has  swallowed  up  the  universe.  And  in  this 
fatal  error  must  every  system  issue,  which  assumes  that  the  uni¬ 
verse  is  grounded  in  thought,  and  yet  that  the  thought  floats  in 
emptiness,  thought  without  a  thinker,  without  a  rational  personal 
mind  existing  eternally  and  energizing  in  the  universe. 

In  the  second  place,  that  nature  is  symbolic  is  evident  in  the 
fact  that  it  is  capable  of  being  comprehended  in  a  scientific  sys¬ 
tem  and  thus  is  found  to  be  the  expression  of  mind  in  harmony 
with  our  own.  The  mind  finds  in  nature  its  own  rational  princi¬ 
ples,  its  own  inferences,  its  own  mental  creations.  The  observa¬ 
tion  of  nature  is  a  continual  confirmation  in  experience  of  the 
truth  of  the  primitive  intuitions  of  reason  and  the  validity  of  the 
processes  of  thought.  Man  finds  in  nature  the  expression  of  his 
own  reason.  Thus  he  finds  himself  “  at  home  ”  in  the  physical 
system  to  its  remotest  worlds,  because  everywhere  he  finds  in  it 
the  expression  of  intelligence  like  his  own. 

This  is  evident  from  the  fact  that  physical  science  exists. 
Physical  science  is  nothing  but  the  setting  forth  of  the  realities 
of  nature  in  the  forms  of  intelligence  and  in  the  order  of  its  prin¬ 
ciples  and  laws.  We  explore  the  outward  world  and  we  find  it 
the  expression  of  the  intelligence  of  which  we  are  conscious  in 
our  own  minds  ;  we  find  it  conformed  to  the  principles  and  laws 
which  regulate  our  own  thinking.  We  observe  bodies  and  their 
motions,  but  they  conform  to  the  laws  of  mind  and  express  its 
thoughts.  Nature  is  scientifically  known  only  as  we  know  the 
thought  which  it  expresses.  Science  is  itself  the  knowledge  of 
nature  in  its  most  exact  and  complete  form.  It  declares  the  men¬ 
tal  kHas,  laws,  harmonies  which  it  finds  in  nature  ;  the  exact 
knowledge  which  it  enunciates  it  ha*s  read  in  nature.  If  nature 
was  not  the  expression  of  intelligence  like  our  own,  there  could 
be  no  science.  If  nature  were  not  already  the  expression  of  ideasr 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  NATURE. 


261 


and  ordered  according  to  law  it  could  never  be  translated  into 
thought.  Science  observes  nature  and  finds  intelligence  ex¬ 
pressed  everywhere  in  it.  It  finds  all  things  in  nature  to  be 
symbols  and  it  interprets  them.  It  deciphers  nature  and  learns 
the  thought  which  it  expresses,  as  Champollion  deciphered  the 
Egyptian  hieroglyphics.  If  the  hieroglyphics  had  not  first  been 
symbols  of  intelligent  thought,  no  diligence  could  have  found  in¬ 
telligence  in  them.  They  have  objective  reality  and  ideality  ;  and 
the  essential  significance  of  their  objective  reality  is  in  their  ob¬ 
jective  ideality.  As  Dr.  Carpenter  says  :  “We  cannot  proceed 
a  step  without  translating  the  actual  phenomena  of  nature  into 
intellectual  representations  of  those  phenomena.”  1 

That  the  Reason  revealed  in  nature  is  like  our  own  is  remark¬ 
able  in  scientific  prevision;  and  Comte  insists  that  the  power  of 
foreseeing  and  foretelling  phenomena  is  essentially  distinctive  of 
science  ;  and  that  any  knowledge  which  does  not  reach  this  power 
is  unworthy  of  the  name  of  science.  In  this  he  is  doubtless  in 
error.  Yet  physical  science  has  already  attained  this  power  in 
many  cases.  It  knows  so  exactly  the  laws  under  which  the  forces 
of  nature  are  ordered  that  it  can  foretell  events  ages  distant  in 
the  future  to  the  fraction  of  a  second. 

The  same  is  remarkable  in  scientific  discovery.  The  mind 
forms  its  hypothesis  of  what  must  be;  and  then  goes  out  into 
nature  and  finds  that  it  is  so.  The  genius  of  the  discoverer  cre¬ 
ates  a  prophetic  picture  and  says  :  “  Nature  must  be  so  and  so;” 
then  he  goes  out  into  nature  and  finds  his  conception  there,  al¬ 
ready  realized  in  nature  ages  before  he  had  thought  it  ;  and  yet, 
all  the  same,  a  pure  intellectual  conception.  This  is  the  almost 
universal  history  of  discovery  ;  it  is.  an  intellectual  creation,  a 
prophetic  idea,  afterwards  found  expressed  and  realized  in  the 
material  creation.  And  not  infrequently  the  prophetic  concep¬ 
tion  of  genius  is  announced  years  or  even  centuries  before  it  is 
actually  discovered  and  verified  by  observation. 

Another  exemplification  is  in  invention.  The  inventor  creates 
his  machine  in  thought  before  he  realizes  it  in  actual  construc¬ 
tion  ;  and  the  steel  and  brass  and  wood,  the  water,  the  fire,  the 
electricity,  created  as  expressions  of  intelligent  thought,  yield 
readily  to  the  thought  of  the  inventor,  obey  the  laws  which 
guided  him  in  creating  his  idea,  and  steadily  do  the  work  which 
he  directs.  And  when  he  investigates  nature  he  finds  in  it 

1  Man  as  the  Interpreter  of  Nature;  Popular  Science  Monthly,  Oct.  1872, 
p.  687. 


262 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


similar  contrivances  doing  the  same  kind  of  work  according  to 
the  same  laws.  And  often  it  is  the  contrivance  in  nature  which 
suggests  the  invention  to  man.  The  divine  art  in  nature  is  the 
model  for  human  art. 

The  use  of  mathematics  in  science  is  another  striking  illustra¬ 
tion.  We  spin  our  geometrical  lines  and  figures  out  of  our  own 
thoughts  and  within  our  own  minds  without  the  slightest  refer¬ 
ence  to  experience.  Yet  when  we  go  out  into  the  material  uni¬ 
verse  we  find  it  everywhere  constructed  according  to  the  purely 
a  priori  geometry  of  our  own  minds.  There  are  no  meridional 
or  equatorial  lines  and  circles  on  the  earth  or  in  the  sky,  yet  the 
universe  is  constructed  according  to  the  principles  and  demonstra¬ 
tions  of  mathematics.  We  construct  a  crystal  a  priori  and  geo¬ 
metrically.  We  examine  nature  and  find  crystals  constructed 
according  to  the  same  plan.  u  Every  atom  solves  differential 
equations  which,  if  written  out  in  full,  might  belt  the  earth.”  1 
Professor  Peirce,  of  Harvard  University,  several  years  ago  pub¬ 
lished  a  volume  on  Mathematics,  in  which,  as  those  competent  to 
follow  him  in  his  course  of  thought  tell  us,  he  proved  that  “  from 
our  a  priori  conceptions  of  form,  number  and  power  we  should 
be  inevitably  led,  were  creation  intrusted  to  us,  to  create  a  world 
similar  in  its  plan  to  this.”  In  like  manner  by  mathematical 
reasoning  we  determine  the  form  best  fitted  for  motion  through 
air  or  water ;  and  in  birds  and  fishes  we  find  forms  accordant 
with  these  a  priori  demonstrations  of  our  own  pure  intelligence. 
“  In  Peirce’s  Integral  Calculus,  published  in  1848,  is  a  problem 
invented  and  solved  purely  in  the  enthusiasm  of  following  math¬ 
ematical  symbols ;  but  in  1868  it  proved  to  be  a  complete  pro¬ 
phetic  discussion  and  solution  of  the  problem  of  two  pendulums 
suspended  from  one  horizontal  cord.  Thus  also  Galileo’s  discus¬ 
sion  of  the  cycloid  proved  long  afterward  to  be  a  key  to  problems 
concerning  the  pendulum,  falling  bodies  and  resistance  to  trans¬ 
verse  pressure.  Four  centuries  before  Christ  Plato  and  his 
scholars  were  occupied  on  the  ellipse  as  a  purely  geometrical 
speculation.  But  in  the  seventeenth  century  Kepler  discovered 
that  the  architect  of  the  heavens  had  given  us  magnificent  dia¬ 
grams  of  the  ellipse  in  the  starry  heavens.”  2 

We  must  conclude  that  in  every  observation  of  nature  “reason 
disengages  an  element  exclusively  its  own  ;  ”  and  that  “  the  no- 

1  Jevons,  Principles  of  Science,  p.  756. 

2  Natural  Sources  of  Theology,  by  Thomas  Hill,  D.  D.,  LL.  D.,  pp. 
66,  67. 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  NATURE.  263 

tion  of  a  perfect  science  is  a  delusion  when  it  does  not  find  its 
root  in  an  invisible  world.”  1 

Therefore  not  only  does  nature,  as  scientifically  investigated, 
express  thought  and  reveal  mind  ;  it  also  expresses  thought  and 
reveals  mind  in  unison  with  our  own.  The  intelligence,  the  prin¬ 
ciples,  the  laws,  the  ideas,  which  science  finds  revealed  every¬ 
where  in  nature,  which  it  finds  determining  the  constitution  of 
the  physical  universe,  and  on  which  it  rests  its  own  claim  to  be 
science,  are  the  intelligence,  the  principles,  the  laws,  the  ideas  of 
the  human  mind.  The  inevitable  inference  is  that  the  human 
reason  is  in  the  likeness  of  the  Reason  that  has  constituted  the 
universe,  the  Reason  that  is  universal ;  and  that  reason  through¬ 
out  the  universe,  in  God  and  in  man,  is  one  and  the  same  in  kind. 
This  is  the  necessary  presupposition  of  all  science.  For  science 
is  nothing  but  human  intelligence.  It  becomes  a  science  of  the 
universe  solely  by  the  processes  of  human  intelligence  and  in  ac¬ 
cordance  with  its  ideas,  principles  and  laws.  If  reason  and  its 
principles  and  laws  are  not  the  same  through  all  space  and  time, 
if  in  other  worlds  or  in  other  ages  intelligence  is  something 
wholly  unlike  human  intelligence  and  therefore  to  us  inconceiva¬ 
ble,  if  its  principles  and  laws  supersede  or  contradict  the  princi¬ 
ples  and  laws  of  human  intelligence,  then  science  is  impossible, 
its  observations  and  inductions,  its  logic  and  mathematics  give  no 
knowledge  of  those  other  worlds  and  ages,  human  perceptions, 
ideas  and  inferences  have  no  objective  reality,  and  human  intelli¬ 
gence  fades  into  mere  sensations  within  the  consciousness  of  an 
individual.2 

From  the  foregoing  considerations  it  is  evident  that  physical 
science  in  its  fundamental  assumptions  and  its  consequent  meth¬ 
ods  is  in  essential  harmony  with  theism  and  not  antagonistic.  In 
all  its  investigations  and  discoveries  it  rests,  consciously  or  un¬ 
consciously,  on  the  theory  of  knowledge  which  I  have  called  Ra¬ 
tional  Realism,  on  which  theism  also  rests.  It  is  true,  some 
scientists  hold  theoretically  that  man  has  knowledge  only  of  sub¬ 
jective  impressions  and  phenomena.  But  these  very  men  in  their 
actual  scientific  investigations  and  discoveries  have  assumed  with¬ 
out  being  aware  of  it  the  truth  of  Rational  Realism,  a  theory 
of  knowledge  contradictory  of  their  own  philosophical  specula¬ 
tions.  They  have  “  builded  wiser  than  they  knew.”  Physical 

1  Prof.  Wm.  Archer  Butler,  History  of  Ancient  Philosophy,  vol.  ii.  pp.  116, 
130. 

2  Phil.  Basis  of  Theism,  pp.  142-151,  560-564. 


264 


THE  SELF-RE YELATION  OF  GOD. 


science  in  all  its  actual  work  as  suck  has  definitely  abandoned 
phenomenalism  and  the  positivism  of  Comte.  It  builds  on  the 
recognition  of  the  objective  reality  of  beings,  of  their  relations, 
and  of  the  principles,  laws,  ideals  and  ends  of  reason  revealed  in 
them.  Physical  science,  therefore,  in  its  fundamental  assump¬ 
tions  and  its  methods  consequent  on  them,  is  in  real  alliance 
with  theism.  In  all  its  discoveries  it  is  verifying  that  Rational 
Realism  which  is  the  philosophical  basis  of  theism. 

A  third  evidence  of  symbolism  in  nature  is  the  common  recog¬ 
nition  in  human  action  and  language  of  a  correspondence  between 
spirit  and  nature. 

This  correspondence  is  indicated  in  the  tendency  of  man  to 
construct  his  ideas  in  physical  forms,  in  mechanical  inventions, 
in  architecture,  painting  and  sculpture. 

This  correspondence  is  also  incorporated  into  language.  Spir¬ 
itual  realities  are  designated  by  words  originally  appropriated  to 
physical  realities.  This  fact  accords  with  the  theistic  conception 
and  corroborates  it.  The  eternal  Spirit  expresses  his  archetypal 
thought  in  the  physical  universe.  This  is  the  primitive  medium 
of  revelation,  the  first  Word  of  God.  The  book  of  nature  is  the 
primer,  in  which  he  sets  his  children  first  to  spell  out  his  name 
and  to  read  what  he  is.  Therefore  in  all  languages  the  names  of 
spiritual  things  continue  to  indicate  the  primitive  medium  of  rev¬ 
elation. 

This  correspondence  of  nature  and  spirit  has  forced  itself  into 
the  thinking  of  men  in  all  ages  and  in  all  spheres  of  thought.  If, 
as  theism  declares,  the  eternal  Spirit  has  revealed  himself  in  na¬ 
ture,  there  must  be,  not  an  antagonism  and  reciprocal  repulsion, 
but  a  correspondence  between  them  ;  nature  must  be  the  fit  me¬ 
dium  for  the  revelation,  the  garment  in  which  the  Spirit  clothes 
himself  with  visibility.  And  history  shows  that  men  have  al¬ 
ways  acted,  though  unreflectively,  under  this  impression.  The¬ 
ism  says  that  spirit  reveals  itself  in  nature  ;  and  in  their  religion 
from  the  earliest  times  men  have  found  spirit  revealed  in  na¬ 
ture.  Theism  says  that  God  has  expressed  his  thought  in  na¬ 
ture  ;  and  in  all  ages  men  have  read  thought  in  nature,  though 
sometimes  miscalling  the  words,  or  missing  the  true  meaning,  or 
spelling  the  words  without  taking  the  sense.  This  correspond^ 
ence  is  also  recognized,  as  we  have  seen,  in  empirical  and  phi¬ 
losophical  science  ;  for  it  consists  in  reading  the  thought  revealed 
in  the  universe,  and  all  its  conclusions  rest  on  the  presupposition 
that  reason,  one  and  the  same  in  kind,  pervades  the  universe  and 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  NATURE. 


265 


reveals  its  thought  in  it.  The  correspondence  of  nature  and  spirit 
is  also  recognized,  unconsciously  it  may  be,  in  man’s  delight  in 
personification  and  poetry  which  look  through  the  symbols  of 
nature  to  its  significance  and  picture  life  and  spirit  in  inanimate 
things.  Heine’s  lonely  tree  is  an  example :  — 

“  A  Pine-tree  stands  forsaken,  all  alone, 

Upon  yon  far-off,  towering,  vasty  height  ; 

And  mourning,  chilled  to  heart  by  Winter’s  blight, 

Trembles  and  sways,  by  every  rude  wind  blown. 

Warm  dreams  of  love  keep  the  cold  tree  from  death, 

Dreams  of  a  Palm-tree  in  the  Orient  land  ; 

Ah,  on  a  rocky  cliff,  in  burning  sand, 

The  Palm-tree  pants  to  feel  the  Pine-tree’s  breath.” 

Thus  religion,  empirical  and  philosophical  science,  and  poetry 
unite  in  recognizing  the  correspondence  of  nature  and  spirit ;  all 
find  in  nature  the  expression  of  an  intelligence,  the  revelation  of 
a  rational  spirit  like  our  own.  Each  presents  nature  as  a  mirror 
in  which  the  spirit  of  man  sees  the  reflected  image  of  itself.  It 
is  the  same  mirror  in  different  frames.1 

Finally,  that  nature  is  expressive  of  thought  is  evident  from 
the  fact  that  all  material  beings  and  their  physical  forces  exist  in 
the  unity  of  a  system  which  is  the  cosmos  or  the  physical  uni¬ 
verse.  This  conception  is  essential  in  all  science.  But  a  system 
in  its  essence  involves  intelligence.  It  supposes  a  plurality  of 
objects  acting  in  harmony  in  accordance  with  common  laws  and 
a  controlling  idea.  Knowledge  must  have  made  great  progress 
before  man  could  have  formed  the  idea  of  a  universe.  Yet  this 
idea  was  so  ancient  that  its  origin  is  lost  in  oblivion.  The  unity 
of  all  material  things  in  a  system,  the  universe  or  cosmos,  is  now 
familiar  to  all  civilized  people,  and  is  assumed  as  unquestionable 
in  all  science.  It  is  of  itself  indisputable  evidence  that  nature 
reveals  intelligence  and  expresses  thought.  And  it  proves  not 
merely  this,  but  also  that  the  system  is  the  product  of  one  ra¬ 
tional  mind,  the  same  in  kind  with  the  mind  of  man  and  pervad¬ 
ing  and  controlling  the  universe. 

It  is  also  a  system  embracing  in  its  larger  unity  innumerable 
smaller  systems,  so  that  all  these  systems  are  harmonious  con¬ 
stituents  of  the  one  all-comprehending  system,  expressing  one  all- 
comprehending  idea  or  plan.  In  it  our  sun  and  planets  consti¬ 
tute  a  solar  system.  As  there  are  numberless  suns,  there  are 
probably  numberless  solar  systems,  all  in  unity  in  the  one  system 

1  “Ein  Spiegel  mit  zwei  Namen 

Verschieden  nur  durch  Schliff  uud  andren  Rahmen.” 


266 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


of  the  universe.  And  on  earth  we  find  many  systems.  Organ¬ 
ized  beings  are  grouped  in  genera  and  species ;  and  they  are  not 
merely  thus  classified,  but  are  also  systemized  in  the  subordi¬ 
nation  of  lower  types  to  higher  and  in  the  progressive  develop¬ 
ment  of  higher  types.  Every  organized  being  is  also  individually 
in  itself  a  system  of  innumerable  cells,  all  acting  harmoniously  in 
subordination  to  the  idea  of  the  organism.  All  atoms  and  mole¬ 
cules  in  their  interaction  are  acting  harmoniously  in  the  system. 
And  finally  passing  downward  from  the  cosmos  which  includes 
all,  to  these  ultimate  elements,  science  finds  itself  unable  to  re¬ 
tain  the  ancient  simple  atom  in  solid  singleness,  but  finds  it, 
though  infrangible,  yet  composed  of  parts,  and  endowed  with 
potencies,  and  so  a  system  in  itself.  The  theory  of  the  vortex- 
atom  represents  it  as  a  sort  of  infinitesimal  solar  system  as  com¬ 
plex  as  our  solar  system,  revolving  like  it  according  to  fixed  laws, 
and  requiring  an  astronomy  of  the  infinitesimal  as  mathematical 
and  complex  as  that  of  our  solar  system.  And  if  this  theory  be 
never  established,  the  molecule  at  least  is  recognized  in  science 
as  a  complex  whole,  with  many  potencies,  and  the  source  of  pow¬ 
erful  energies.  Each  of  these  numberless  minor  systems  is  an 
expression  of  mind  ;  and  so,  but  immensely  more,  is  their  com¬ 
bination  in  the  unity  of  the  one  all-comprehending  system  of  the 
cosmos.  And  the  unity  of  this  system  is  neither  conceivable  nor 
thinkable  except  as  the  effect  of  one  absolute  Reason  energizing 
in  the  realization  of  its  own  eternal  and  never  changing  arche- 

Physical  science  is  rapidly  enlarging  our  knowledge  of  the 
unity  of  nature.  It  has  been  proved  that  the  law  of  gravitation 
extends  beyond  the  solar  system  to  the  stars.  The  mysterious 
ether  pervading  all  space  binds  all  worlds  in  unity ;  a  commotion 
in  the  flaming  sun  moves  at  once  every  magnetic  needle  on  the 
earth.  The  spectroscope  shows  in  the  sun  and  other  heavenly 
bodies  the  same  elements  which  we  find  on  earth.  Thus  science 
discloses  the  unity  of  the  cosmos  through  all  space.  And  in 
evolution  it  is  disclosing  its  unity  in  progressive  development 
through  all  time. 

The  necessary  conclusion  is  that  all  nature  is  symbolic  of 
thought  and  thus  reveals  the  universal  Reason.  Atheistic  science 
discovers  the  symbol  and  stops.  Theism  passes  through  the 
symbol  to  the  reality  behind  it  and  thus  interprets  its  signif¬ 
icance. 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  NATURE.  267 

II.  Nature  orderly  under  law.  —  Nature  is  orderly  or 
uniform  and  continuous  under  law. 

There  is  no  question  here  as  to  moral  law.  The  physical 
system,  comprising  only  the  impersonal,  is  not  subject  to  moral 
law.  But  law  in  its  most  general  meaning  is  truth  considered 
as  regulating  action.1  Thus  the  truths  or  principles  regulating 
mechanical  action  are  the  laws  of  mechanics ;  a  steam-engine 
constructed  according  to  these  laws  is  said  to  be  constructed 
right ;  and  if  it  is  in  perfect  order,  its  action  is  said  to  be  right ; 
that  is,  it  acts  according  to  the  law  of  its  being.  In  this  sense  the 
physical  system  and  all  things  in  it  may  be  said  to  be  constructed 
right,  that  is,  according  to  a  law,  and  to  act  right,  that  is,  in  ac¬ 
cordance  with  a  law.  The  uniform  factual  sequences  observed  in 
nature  are  also  called  laws  of  nature.  But  these  are  so  called  only 
in  a  secondary  sense.  In  truth  they  are  only  factual  manifesta¬ 
tions  or  revelations  of  law  in  its  true  significance,  which  is  always 
a  principle  or  law  of  reason. 

From  the  order  or  uniformity  of  action  we  infer  a  law  regu¬ 
lating  the  action.  If  a  stone  hits  a  spot  in  a  wall,  we  make  no 
inference  as  to  intelligent  direction.  But  if  twenty  stones  in 
close  succession  hit  the  same  spot,  we  infer  that  they  were  in¬ 
telligently  directed.  If  a  player  with  dice  throws  double  sixes  a 
dozen  times  in  succession  we  have  no  doubt  that  the  dice  are 
loaded.  Thus  uniformity  in  a  brief  series  of  very  simple  acts 
forces  us  to  infer  an  intelligent  intention  regulating  the  action. 

This  inference  is  seen  to  be  reasonable  when  we  reckon  the 
possible  combinations  of  a  very  few  units.  Professor  Jevons 
says  :  “  In  whist  the  four  hands  are  simultaneously  held  ;  and  the 
number  of  distinct  deals  becomes  so  vast  that  it  would  require 
twenty-eight  figures  to  express  it.  If  the  whole  population  of 
the  world  —  say  one  thousand  millions  —  were  to  deal  cards  day 
and  night  for  a  hundred  million  years,  they  would  not  in  that 
time  have  exhausted  the  one  hundred  thousandth  part  of  the 
possible  deals.  ...  It  is  in  the  highest  degree  improbable  that 
any  one  game  of  whist  was  ever  exactly  like  another,  except  it 
were  intentionally  so.”2  Laplace  estimated  that  the  forty-three 
independent  motions  of  bodies  in  the  solar  system  as  known  in 
his  day  admitted  of  4,400,000,000,000  combinations. 

Thus  the  coincidence  of  a  few  elements  in  a  continuous  order 
of  succession  is  decisive  evidence  of  intelligent  direction.  The 

1  Phil.  Basis  of  Theism,  pp.  185,  186. 

2  Principles  of  Science,  pp,  190,  191. 


268 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


irresistibleness  of  the  evidence  becomes  more  and  more  apparent 
with  every  increase  in  the  number  of  the  units,  the  complexity 
of  the  idea,  the  complication  of  the  arrangement,  and  the  invari¬ 
able  accordance  of  the  arrangement  with  the  idea.  It  increases 
so  rapidly  that  a  very  small  number  of  units  and  a  moderate 
degree  of  complexity  make  the  inference  of  intelligent  direction 
from  uniformity  a  resistless  certainty. 

The  physical  system  of  the  universe  is  pervaded  with  order, 
from  the  planets  and  suns  and  solar  systems  down  to  the  ultimate 
atoms.  Wherever  matter  is,  there  is  order.  The  innumerable 
agents  in  nature,  in  all  their  complicated  combinations  and  in¬ 
teractions,  act  in  unvarying  order  and  according  to  law.  All 
science  is  engaged  in  discovering  this  order  of  nature.  All  in¬ 
duction  is  founded  on  it.  The  plans  of  everyday  life  are  made 
in  dependence  on  it ;  if  one  observes  the  signs  of  the  sky  and 
says,  “  It  looks  like  rain,”  he  is  merely  drawing  an  -inference 
from  previous  observations,  founded  on  the  uniform  order  of 
nature.  If  then  a  dozen  uniform  throws  of  a  pair  of  dice  con¬ 
vince  us  at  once  that  some  intelligence  has  loaded  the  dice  and 
thus  caused  the  uniformity  to  result  in  accordance  with  the  law 
of  gravitation,  how  much  more  must  we  infer  from  the  order 
pervading  the  universe,  with  beings  so  innumerable,  with  inter¬ 
actions  and  complications  so  intricate,  with  extent  so  immense, 
with  order  and  uniformity  persisting  through  all  time,  that  this 
uniformity  and  order  under  law  is  the  result  of  intelligent  direc¬ 
tion.  Even  an  opponent  of  theism,  one  of  the  ablest  in  our  day, 
has  said :  “  Let  us  think  of  this  supreme  causality  as  we  may, 
the  fact  remains  that  from  it  there  emanates  a  directive  influence 
of  uninterrupted  consistency  on  a  scale  of  stupendous  magnitude 
and  exact  precision  worthy  of  our  highest  possible  conceptions  of 
Deity.” 

Physical  science  rests  on  the  law  of  the  uniformity  and  con¬ 
tinuity  of  nature  as  its  fundamental  postulate.  Thus  the  neces¬ 
sity  of  recognizing  God  immanent  and  energizing  in  nature  is 
disclosed  by  physical  science  itself. 

In  the  first  place  it  is  necessary  to  any  rational  explanation  of 
the  fundamental  postulates  of  physical  science. 

One  postulate  is,  that  the  sum  of  all  force  potential  and  ener¬ 
getic  is  always  the  same ;  no  action  makes  it  greater  and  no 
cessation  of  action  makes  it  less.  The  assumption  is  that  the 
universe  consists  of  a  fixed  quantity  of  matter  and  force  eternally 
acting.  This  assumption  implies  that  the  universe  is  a  machine 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  NATURE. 


269 


keeping  itself  in  motion  forever  without  external  force.  Then 
the  fundamental  principle  of  science  involves  the  absurdity  of  a 
perpetual  motion  ;  and  this  absurdity  it  is  impossible  to  elimi¬ 
nate.  Physical  science  itself  exposes  this  absurdity  and  escapes 
it  only  by  denying  the  perpetuity  of  the  motion.  For  it  dis¬ 
covers  that  eventually  all  the  forces  must  come  into  equilibrium 
and  the  whole  machinery  must  stop.  Once  thus  stopped  it  is 
stopped  forever ;  for  by  the  supposition  there  is  no  power  ex¬ 
terior  to  the  machine  to  renew  the  motion. 

Theism  affirms  this  fundamental  principle  of  science,  and  re¬ 
moves  the  difficulties  which  physical  science  reveals  but  cannot 
remove.  The  sum  of  all  force  potential  and  energetic  is  eternal 
in  God.  It  is  unchanging  and  inexhaustible,  incapable  of  in¬ 
crease  or  diminution,  because  God  is  the  absolute  Being.  It  is 
directive  and  regulative,  because  God  is  the  absolute  Reason. 
It  may  be  potential  or  energetic,  because  God  exerts  his  power 
in  the  finite  or  refrains  from  exerting  it  at  will. 

Another  fundamental  postulate  is  that  nature  is  orderly  under 
law.  But  the  continuity  and  uniformity  of  nature  and  its  unity 
in  a  system  depend  themselves  on  the  existence  of  God  and  his 
immanence  and  action  in  nature. 

Physical  science  assumes  the  continuity  and  uniformity  of  na¬ 
ture,  but  cannot  prove  or  account  for  it.  It  is  sometimes  claimed 
that  the  belief  rests  on  experience  and  observation.  Scientific 
observation  and  experiment  continually  confirm  these  principles, 
but  cannot  be  said  to  prove  them.  Scientific  observation  cannot 
be  universal,  and  cannot  establish  a  universal  truth.  And  in  fact 
there  are  many  effects  the  causes  of  which  cannot  be  observed, 
and  many  events  in  which  the  continuity  and  uniformity  do  not 
appear  to  the  observation  of  sense.  Hence  science  is  obliged  to 
assume  the  principle  and  work  by  it  without  proof.  It  is  not 
science  which  establishes  the  principle  of  the  uniformity  and  con¬ 
tinuity  of  nature,  but  it  is  the  principle  of  the  uniformity  and 
continuity  of  nature  which  makes  science  possible. 

Theism  not  only  accepts  the  principle,  but  also  gives  a  philo¬ 
sophical  basis  for  it.  The  action  of  an  almighty  will  in  per¬ 
fect  harmony  with  Reason  must  give  the  highest  uniformity, 
continuity  and  unity. 

In  the  second  place,  science  discovers  facts  in  nature  which 
can  be  harmonized  with  its  uniformity,  continuity  and  unity 
only  on  the  supposition  that  a  supernatural  power  is  immaiiently 
active  in  it. 


270 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


Such  facts  are  found  in  nature  in  its  space-relations.  Physical 
science  cannot  explain  gravitation,  cohesion,  nor  light  and  heat, 
either  as  forces  inherent  in  matter  or  as  caused  by  impact ;  but 
in  the  attempt  to  explain  them  it  encounters  uirresolvable  objec¬ 
tions  and  contradictions.1  It  is  assumed  that  neither  masses  nor 
molecules  ever  come  in  contact.  With  stronger  vision  we  should 
see  every  mass  of  matter  perforated  with  vacant  space  surround¬ 
ing  every  molecule.  It  follows  that  the  action  of  one  body,  molar 
or  molecular,  on  another  must  always  be  action  at  a  distance. 
The  acting  force  must  always  pass  disembodied  through  empty 
space. 

Nature  presents  similar  difficulties  in  its  time-relations. 

Physical  science  cannot  account  for  the  beginning  of  motion. 
The  finiten  ess  of  the  universe  demonstrates  that  it  must  have 
had  a  beginning.  The  evolution  of  a  finite  universe  must  come 
to  an  end,  and  must  have  had  a  beginning.  The  only  escape 
from  these  conclusions  is  by  recognizing  the  existence  of  an  infi¬ 
nite  and  absolute  power  above  and  beyond  nature,  which  perpet¬ 
ually  sustains  it,  supplies  it  with  force  and  directs  its  development. 

Mr.  Spencer’s  primitive  homogeneous  matter  involves  in  its 
essential  idea  a  beginning  of  motion.  In  the  homogeneous,  as 
he  defines  it,  the  sixty-four  elemental  substances  or  primitive 
units  are  “so  uniformly  dispersed  among  each  other  that  any 
portion  of  the  mass  shall  be  like  any  other  portion  in  its  sensible 
properties.”  2  This  would  imply  that  in  every  cubic  inch  of  the 
nebulous  matter  every  one  of  these  elements  would  be  found ; 
and  if  so,  then  necessarily  the  quantity  of  each  in  every  cubic 
inch  must  be  in  the  same  proportion  to  the  quantity  of  all  the 
rest  as  it  is  in  the  universe.  In  every  cubic  inch  there  would 
be  yttrium,  vanadium,  thorium,  glucinum  and  every  element  of 
which  the  whole  quantity  in  the  world  is  very  little,  and  its  uni¬ 
versal  diffusion  would  be  inconceivably  tenuous  ;  and  of  oxy¬ 
gen,  hydrogen,  nitrogen,  carbon  and  others,  which  compose 
almost  the  whole  globe.  If  a  cubic  inch  of  iron  or  silver  ex¬ 
isted  anywhere,  the  homogeneous  would  already  have  become 
heterogeneous.  This  uniformity  of  distribution  itself  reveals  the 
direction  of  mind.  Besides  this,  the  equilibrium  of  the  homo¬ 
geneous  implies  the  entire  absence  of  motion.  Necessarily,  then, 
there  must  have  been  a  beginning  of  motion.  This  cannot  be 
accounted  for  by  the  homogeneous  itself,  but  necessarily  implies 

1  Phil.  Basis  of^Theism,  pp.  420-426. 

2  First  Principles,  p.  335. 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  NATURE. 


271 


a  power  beyond  and  above  it  that  acts  on  it.  The  universe 
itself,  in  the  light  of  modern  science,  can  no  more  account  for 
the  beginning  of  motion  than  it  could  in  the  days  of  Aristotle. 

Physical  science  is  confronted  by  similar  insuperable  difficul¬ 
ties  in  its  attempts  to  explain  the  course  of  nature.  The  evo¬ 
lution  of  the  nebulous  matter  cannot  be  explained,  consistently 
with  known  facts,  as  a  mere  development  or  disentangling  of 
what  already  existed  in  it.  There  are  successive  epochs  or  stages 
in  the  evolution,  in  which  new  and  higher  powers  are  revealed, 
acting  on  a  higher  plane.  Notable  are  the  epochs  of  the  appear¬ 
ance  of  life,  of  sensitivity  and  of  rational  persons.  No  power 
disclosed  in  the  previous  stages  can  account  for  these  higher 
manifestations.  If  there  is  no  power  beyond  the  universe  itself, 
these  higher  stages  of  being  are  effects  without  a  cause.1 

Thus  physical  science  discloses  facts  which  of  itself  it  cannot 
reconcile  with  the  continuity  and  uniformity  of  nature. 

But  theism  removes  these  difficulties,  and  shows  the  harmony 
of  these  facts  with  the  continuity  and  uniformity  of  nature  in 
the  unityofATs^stem.  It  teaches  that  the  universe  is  the  con¬ 
tinuous  and  progressive  expression  of  God’s  thought.  God,  the 
absolute  Reason,  is  continually  energizing  on  and  through  it, 
directing  its  action  and  development  to  rational  ends.  The  uni¬ 
verse  is  the  medium  in  and  through  which  God  is  revealing  him¬ 
self.  But  the  infinite  cannot  be  revealed  in  the  finite  all  at  once, 
God  cannot  reveal  his  eternal  wisdom  and  love  at  a  stroke.  If 
the  infinite  is  revealed  in  the  finite  the  revelation  must  be  pro¬ 
gressive,  and  cannot  be  complete  at  any  terminal  bound  of  time 
or  space.  And  matter  itself  must  be  elaborated  in  and  from 
lower  forms  to  higher  and  finer,  in  order  to  be  made  receptive 
of  higher  manifestations  of  God’s  thought  and  power.  We  may 
conceive  of  the  energy  of  God’s  inexhaustible  and  never  dimin¬ 
ished  wisdom  and  power  in  perpetual  tension  within  the  universe 
developing  it  to  higher  receptivity  and  capacity,  and  manifesting 
thftuigh  it  higher  potencies,  bringing  in  higher  orders  of  beings, 
disclosing  new  and  higher  spheres  of  activity  and  achievement, 
as  fast  as  the  finite  is  developed  to  a  capacity  to  be  a  medium 
for  the  higher  action  and  the  higher  manifestation  of  the  divine 
perfection.  And  thus  the  material  world  itself  is  developed  and 
revealed.  Modern  science  is  more  and  more  disclosing  the  mys¬ 
tery  and  capacity  of  what  we  call  matter.  Matter  has  been 
called  an  z,  an  unknown  quantity.  But  it  is  an  unknown,  not 
1  Philosophical  Basis  of  Theism,  pp.  472,  491-502,  454. 


272 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


an  unknowable,  and  science  is  continually  revealing  to  us  more 
and  more  its  hidden  capacities  and  energies.  The  progressive 
revelation  of  God  in  nature  is  also  a  progressive  revelation  of 
the  “Open  Secret  ”  of  the  universe  and  of  the  mysteries  hid¬ 
den  in  matter  itself. 

Thus  it  appears  that  the  continuity  and  uniformity  of  nature 
and  its  unity  in  a  system  depend  on  the  existence  of  God  and 
his  immanence  and  action  in  nature.  It  lias  been  objected  to 
philosophy  that  it  ultimately  breaks  down  in  contradictions  or 
antinomies.  We  find  that,  if  there  is  no  God  and  no  system 
of  rational  and  free  persons,  then  these  antinomies  are  irrecon¬ 
cilable  contradictions  and  reason  is  discredited.  But  if  there  is 
a  God  and  a  spiritual  system  of  rational  free  agency,  then  these 
antinomies  are  not  contradictions,  but  complementary  truths.1 
In  like  manner  we  find  antinomies  in  physical  science.  And  the 
same  is  true  of  these  as  of  the  antinomies  of  philosophy.  If  God 
does  not  exist  they  are  irreconcilable  contradictions.  Then  the 
maxim  that  nature  is  uniform  and  continuous,  on  which  phys¬ 
ical  science  rests,  is  contradicted  by  indisputable  facts  which 
science  discovers.  But  if  God  exists  immanent  and  acting  in 
nature,  they  are  no  longer  contradictions,  but  manifestations  of 
the  uniformity,  continuity  and  unity  of  nature,  as  expressing  the 
truth  and  law  and  realizing  the  ideals  and  ends  of  the  absolute 
Reason  energizing  in  it.  It  is  the  existence  of  God  which  makes 
the  continuity,  uniformity  and  unity  of  nature  possible.  Thus 
physical  science  itself  reveals  its  own  insufficiency  and  points 
unmistakably  to  a  sphere  of  existence  beyond  itself. 

III.  Nature  realizing  ideals. — Nature  reveals  action  di¬ 
rected  toward  the  realization  of  ideals. 

We  come  here  to  that  part  of  the  physico-theological  proof 
which  is  more  specifically  teleological ;  the  consideration  of  the 
ends  for  which  nature  and  all  which  it  includes  exist.  The  ends 
subserved  by  nature  and  its  agencies  and  processes  are  twofold, 
and  may  be  distinguished  as  internal  and  external.  The  over¬ 
looking  of  this  distinction  has  caused  much  confusion  of  thought 
on  the  subject. 

The  internal  end  of  anything  in  nature  is  the  realization  of  its 
plan  or  ideal.  The  external  end  is  the  uses  which  it  may  sub¬ 
serve  after  it  is  completed  according  to  its  ideal. 

The  first  of  these  ends  is  to  be  considered  here.  The  other 
will  constitute  the  fourth  line  of  evidence. 

1  Philosophical  Basis  of  Theism,  pp.  128-135. 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  NATURE. 


278 


It  may  be  assumed  that  whenever  any  agent  is  working  accord¬ 
ing  to  a  plan,  the  work  has  always  a  final  cause  or  end  in  the 
realization  of  the  plan.  That  is,  all  the  parts  and  agencies  are 
subordinate  to  the  plan  of  the  whole.  This  is  often  said  to  be 
the  distinctive  characteristic  of  living  organisms.  Hence  it  is 
said  that  final  causes  are  found  only  in  them.  But  the  final  cause 
seems  to  be  not  less  a  characteristic  of  mechanism.  When  one 
is  making  a  steam-engine  every  part  is  subordinated  to  the  whole, 
and  every  stroke  in  making  it  is  for  the  purpose  of  realizing  its 
ideal  or  plan.  After  it  is  made  the  engine  is  used  for  purposes 
external  to  itself  ;  yet  its  structure  still  reveals  the  fact  that  it 
was  made  according  to  a  plan  and  that  every  part  is  subordinate 
to  the  ideal  of  the  whole.  An  organism  differs  from  a  machine 
in  the  fact  that  the  former  is  seen  to  grow ;  and  after  it  has 
ceased  to  grow  we  see  the  vital  processes  continually  going  on  to 
repair  waste  and  to  preserve  the  life  and  power  of  the  organism. 
During  its  whole  existence  from  the  seed  or  egg  onward  it  is 
seen  to  have  its  end  in  itself,  and  every  organ  and  function  exists 
for  the  organism.  In  a  machine,  on  the  contrary,  it  is  only  dur¬ 
ing  the  process  of  its  construction  that  our  attention  is  directed 
to  the  fact  that  it  has  its  end  in  itself,  and  that  every  part  is  sub¬ 
ordinated  to  realizing  the  plan  of  the  whole.  After  it  is  finished 
our  attention  is  directed  to  the  ends  beyond  itself  for  which  it  is 
used.  On  the  other  hand,  organisms  subserve  external  ends,  in 
bearing  fruit,  presenting  beauty  and  fragrance,  supplying  mate¬ 
rial  and  fuel,  yielding  medicines,  promoting  health  and  fertility, 
and  in  other  ways.  Therefore  organism  and  mechanism  each 
subserves  both  internal  and  external  ends ;  although  in  the  for¬ 
mer  the  internal,  and  in  the  latter  the  external  end  most  attracts 
attention. 

Our  present  thought  is  that  throughout  nature,  organic  and 
inorganic,  we  find  the  realization  of  ideals,  the  continuous  and 
progressive  completing  of  plans  and  systems.  I  shall  consider, 
first,  the  realization,  in  specific  things  and  systems,  of  subordi¬ 
nate  plans  or  ideals  ;  secondly,  the  progressive  realization  of  the 
plan  or  ideal  of  the  cosmos  as  a  whole  ;  and,  thirdly,  the  revela¬ 
tion  of  the  beautiful  in  nature.  The  theory  of  evolution,  by  pre¬ 
senting  the  cosmos  as  unfinished  and  in  continuous  and  progres¬ 
sive  development,  enables  us  to  look  at  it  in  the  process  and  see 
it  progressively  realizing  the  plan  or  ideal,  as  we  see  the  process 
of  constructing  a  steam-engine,  or  of  the  germination  of  a  seed 

and  the  growth  of  the  plant. 

18 


274 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


1.  We  are  to  consider  the  evidence  of  action  directed  toward 
the  realization  of  ideals  in  specific  things  and  subordinate  sys¬ 
tems. 

In  the  first  place,  many  objects  in  their  structure  give  evidence 
of  action  directed  toward  the  realization  of  an  ideal ;  such  are  the 
eye,  the  hand,  and  in  fact  all  the  organs  of  animal  and  vegetable 
life  ;  for  every  organ  is  fitted  for  its  function. 

In  the  second  place,  the  truth  of  this  proposition  is  exempli¬ 
fied  in  processes  going  on  under  observation.  A  striking  example 
is  in  the  development  of  a  germ  or  egg.  Mr.  Huxley  says  : 
“  Examine  the  recently  laid  egg  of  some  common  animal,  such  as 
a  salamander  or  a  newt.  It  is  a  minute  spheroid  in  which  the  best 
microscope  will  reveal  nothing  but  a  structureless  sac  inclosing  a 
glairy  fluid  holding  granules  in  suspension.  But  strange  possi¬ 
bilities  lie  dormant  in  that  semi-fluid  globule.  Let  a  moderate 
supply  of  warmth  reach  its  watery  cradle,  and  the  plastic  matter 
undergoes  changes  so  rapid,  and  yet  so  steady  and  purpose-like 
in  their  succession,  that  one  can  only  compare  them  to  those 
operated  by  a  skilful  modeler  upon  a  formless  lump  of  clay.  As 
with  an  invisible  trowel  the  mass  is  divided  and  subdivided  into 
smaller  and  smaller  portions,  until  it  is  reduced  to  an  aggrega¬ 
tion  of  granules  not  too  large  to  build  withal  the  finest  fabrics  of 
the  nascent  organism.  And  then  it  is  as  if  a  delicate  finger 
traced  out  the  line  to  be  occupied  by  the  spinal  column  and 
molded  the  contour  of  the  body,  pinching  up  the  head  at  one  end 
and  the  tail  at  the  other,  and  fashioning  flank  and  limb  in  due 
salamandrine  proportions,  in  so  artistic  a  way  that,  after  watching 
the  process  hour  by  hour,  one  is  almost  involuntarily  possessed  by 
the  notion  that  some  more  subtle  aid  to  vision  than  an  achromatic 
would  show  the  hidden  artist,  with  his  plan  before  him,  striving 
with  skilful  manipulation  to  perfect  his  work.”  1 

Other  examples  are  found  in  the  vital  processes  of  an  organism 
after  birth.  Professor  Newcomb  says  :  “  Should  we  see  in  visi¬ 
ble  masses  of  matter  the  same  kind  of  motions  which  we  know 
must  take  place  among  the  molecules  of  matter  as  they  arrange 
themselves  into  the  complex  attitudes  necessary  to  form  the  leaf 
of  a  plant,  we  should  at  once  conclude  they  were  under  the  direc¬ 
tion  of  a  living  being,  who  was  superintending  the  execution  of 
these  arrangements.”  And  could  we  see  the  particles  arranging 
themselves  in  the  formation  of  a  crystal,  it  would  seem  to  us  like 
soldiers  at  the  roll  of  the  drum  coming  from  their  resting  places 
and  taking  each  his  proper  position  in  the  ranks. 

1  Lay  Sermons,  pp.  260,  261. 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  NATURE. 


275 


We  may  notice,  next,  the  process  of  selection  in  the  germina¬ 
tion,  nourishing  and  development  of  an  organism.  Different  por¬ 
tions  of  germinal  matter,  differing  from  each  other  in  nothing 
which  science  can  observe,  grow  severally  into  different  organ¬ 
isms,  one  into  an  oak,  another  into  an  oyster  and  another  into  a 
man.  Different  seeds  grow  each  without  fail  into  a  plant  of  its 
own  kind  ;  and  so  persistent  is  this  distinguishing  energy,  that  if 
a  scion  of  one  species  is  grafted  into  the  stock  of  another,  it  per¬ 
sists  in  bearing  fruit  of  its  own  kind.  It  cannot  be  that  this  de¬ 
termination  is  effected  by  soil  or  climate,  by  any  cosmic  influence 
or  any  cultivation,  because  under  precisely  the  same  external  in¬ 
fluences  the  seeds  develop  severally  each  its  peculiar  life.  Here 
is  evidence  of  a  selecting  agency  directing  the  action  to  the  reali¬ 
zation  of  a  specific  ideal. 

A  selecting  agency  is  equally  remarkable  in  the  growth  of  the 
organism  and  its  continued  sustenance.  At  different  points  in 
the  organism  the  nutriment  is  converted  into  different  tissues  ; 
various  glands  exude  various  secretions ;  from  the  same  blood 
some  agency  takes  out  at  different  points  material  for  muscle, 
nerve,  bone,  skin,  hair,  eyes,  the  enamel  of  the  teeth,  and  shapes 
it  into  different  forms  to  meet  the  needs  of  the  organism.  Be¬ 
sides  this,  the  body  is  in  a  perpetual  process  of  waste  and  restora¬ 
tion;  from  the  innumerable  particles  which  are  acting  together 
some  are  selected  to  be  thrown  out,  while  new  ones  take  their 
places  for  a  time.  If  all  these  processes  were  visible,  we  could 
not  resist  the  conclusion  that  these  selections  are  made,  immedi¬ 
ately  or  mediately,  by  some  intelligent  agency. 

And,  fourthly,  we  notice  the  coordination  and  cooperation  of 
many  agencies  all  acting  together  according  to  one  plan  to  realize 
an  ideal. 

In  their  own  conscious  action  men  form  plans  and  then  put 
forth  their  energies  to  realize  them.  One  may  be  spending  his 
energies  for  years  and  even  for  his  whole  life  in  realizing  a  plan. 
Men  exist  in  society.  They  form  plans  together  and  cooperate 
in  their  realization.  Men  may  cooperate  in  realizing  a  common 
plan  on  which  through  successive  generations  and  many  centuries 
they  expend  their  energies.  A  nation  may  work  for  the  realizing 
of  «an  idea  through  centuries.  Christians  have  been  laboring, 
ever  since  Christ  died,  for  the  realization  of  the  idea  of  the  king¬ 
dom  of  God  on  earth.  Thus  man  has  the  conception  of  a  plan, 
and  of  the  coordination  of  many  agents  in  working  for  its  realiza¬ 
tion  as  an  ideal  end. 


276 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


As  we  extend  our  researches  downward  through  the  physical 
system,  we  find  at  every  grade  of  descent  evidence  of  the  coopera¬ 
tive  action  of  many  agents  for  the  realization  of  a  plan  or  ideal 
end. 

In  the  higher  orders  of  brutes,  we  find  them  in  the  exercise  of 
instinct  individually  performing  a  series  of  actions  for  the  attain¬ 
ment  of  an  end.  Often  also  we  find  a  pair  or  a  larger  company 
cooperating  to  accomplish  a  plan,  as  birds  build  nests,  and  bea¬ 
vers  build  dams,  and  wolves  hunt  in  packs. 

Among  insects  we  find  swarms,  which,  rather  than  individuals, 
seem  to  be  the  units  of  the  life  of  the  species.  All  the  bees  in  a 
swarm  work  together  all  summer  to  realize  a  complicated  plan, 
each  part  of  the  work  having  significance  only  in  reference  to 
something  further  in  the  future.  Every  ant  in  a  swarm  works  in 
like  manner  in  cooperation  with  every  other,  not  only  in  work 
which  has  significance  only  in  its  relation  to  the  realization  of 
the  plan  in  the  future,  but  also  in  a  marvelous  division  of  labor, 
in  which  the  work  of  each  class  has  significance  only  in  its  rela¬ 
tion  to  the  entirely  different  work  of  the  others. 

Descending  still  lower  to  the  protozoa,  we  find  the  same  co¬ 
ordination  and  cooperation  among  them.  A  striking  example 
is  the  building  of  a  coral  structure  called  Neptune’s  cup.  This 
cup  is  built  by  myriads  of  coral  polyps,  and  by  many  successive 
generations  of  them.  Yet  from  the  beginning  these  myriads  of 
polyps  work  all  on  the  same  plan,  progressively  realizing  the 
same  ideal.  At  first  many  successive  generations  of  them  build 
the  broad  and  gently  swelling  circular  base.  Then  they  simul¬ 
taneously  change  the  direction  and  fashion  the  cylindrical  stem. 
Then  the  stem  is  gradually  swelled  out  and  fashioned  into  the 
regularly  curved  hollow  bowl.  Surely  some  power  other  than 
these  barely  animate  creatures  directed  the  myriads  of  them  as, 
in  entire  isolation  from  each  other,  they  steadily,  through  many 
successive  generations,  wrought  out  this  plan  and  realized  this 
ideal. 

Descending  to  a  lower  grade,  we  come  to  the  cells  of  living 
organisms,  animal  and  vegetable.  We  find  them,  like  the  coral 
polyps,  working  together  through  many  years  and  through  innu¬ 
merable  lifetimes  of  the  working  cells,  which  continually  perish 
and  pass  away ;  and  working  in  the  progressive  realization  of  a 
plan  more  complicated  than  that  of  the  Neptune’s  cup;  a  fungus, 
a  lichen,  a  rose-bush  and  roses,  an  oak-tree,  a  salmon,  an  eagle, 
a  horse,  a  man.  Here  again  is  evidence  of  coordination  of  myr- 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  NATURE.  277 

iads  of  agents  under  some  directing  intelligence  in  progressively 
realizing  an  ideal. 

Descending  to  a  lower  grade  we  find  the  molecules  which  have 
combined  to  form  the  cells  are  coordinated  in  action  to  realize 
an  ideal,  namely,  a  cell.  And  the  coordination  of  molecules  is 
not  merely  in  the  production  of  the  cells  which  are  the  basis  of 
organic  matter.  In  inorganic  matter  they  are  marshaled  in  order 
in  crystallization.  The  chemical  elements  acting  on  one  another 
combine  in  definite  mathematical  proportions.  The  law  of  chem¬ 
ical  equivalents  indicates  that  the  combining  molecules  are  fitted 
accurately  to  their  positions  and,  it  might  almost  be  said,  stamped 
with  their  combining  numbers  ;  as  the  parts  of  Waltham  watches 
and  of  Springfield  rifles  are  made  each  to  fit  into  its  appropriate 
place  in  any  watch  or  rifle ;  or  as  blocks  of  stone  are  shaped  and 
numbered  in  the  quarry,  each  for  its  appropriate  place  in  the 
building.  Thus  all  of  them  are  coordinated  by  the  intelligence 
of  the  builder  to  realize  the  ideal  of  the  building.  Hence  Sir  J. 
Herschel  and  after  him  Professor  Maxwell  said  that  the  ultimate 
atoms  have  the  marks  of  manufactured  articles. 

Passing  from  molecules  to  masses,  we  find  them  also  coordi¬ 
nated,  working  together  to  realize  the  idea  of  a  habitable  earth, 
a  solar  system,  a  cosmos. 

2.  We  are  to  consider  the  evidence  in  the  progressive  realiza¬ 
tion  of  the  plan  or  ideal  of  the  cosmos  as  a  whole. 

This  plan  is  disclosed  in  the  fact  that  the  physical  system  re¬ 
veals  gradation  and  subordination.  In  it  beings  exist  in  different 
grades,  inorganic  and  organic,  and  in  each  of  these  are  subordi¬ 
nate  gradations.  Animals  of  the  lowest  grade  are  by  virtue  of 
sensitivity  superior  to  vegetables  of  the  highest.  Yet  animal  life 
in  its  lowest  grade  does  not  originate  from  vegetable  life  in  its 
highest.  They  seem  to  be  two  parallel  series.  It  is  the  lower 
orders  of  both  animal  and  vegetable  organization  which  are  so 
much  alike  that  it  is  difficult  to  determine  to  which  of  the  or¬ 
ganic  kingdoms  they  respectively  belong.  In  each  kingdom 
there  is  a  succession  of  ascending  grades,  in  which  the  individ¬ 
uals  are  more  and  more  highly  organized. 

In  the  inorganic  world  we  find  also  a  gradation :  the  mechan¬ 
ical  action  of  masses ;  superior  to  that,  the  mechanical  action  of 
molecules  in  electricity,  heat  and  light ;  superior  to  this,  the  ele¬ 
mental  or  chemical  forces.1 

Further  and  decisive  evidence  is  found  in  the  fact,  disclosed  by 

1  Phil.  Basis  of  Theism,  p.  495. 


278 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


science,  that  nature  is  progressive  in  realizing  the  plan  or  ideal  of 
the  physical  system  or  cosmos. 

The  physical  system  as  a  whole  is  a  cosmos ;  that  is,  a  whole 
that  is  ordered  in  unity  under  law.  We  trace  in  it  gradation 
and  subordination  and  infer  from  its  structure  that  it  is  the  prod¬ 
uct  of  action  directed  to  the  realization  of  an  ideal. 

But  of  late  our  position  in  respect  to  this  argument  is  changed. 
Science  has  discovered  in  the  earth  itself  the  effects  of  mighty 
agencies  active  in  remote  ages  through  long  periods  of  time  form¬ 
ing  it  into  its  present  condition ;  and  has  disclosed  marvelous 
changes  through  which  it  has  passed  and  the  processes  by  which 
it  has  gradually  been  brought  into  its  present  state.  And  sci¬ 
ence  gives  us  reason  to  suppose  that  the  whole  cosmos  may  have 
been  brought  to  its  present  condition  through  a  process  of  evolu¬ 
tion.  We  are,  therefore,  not  to  look  on  the  universe  as  a  product 
finished  in  its  creation,  but  as  the  result  of  processes  which  have 
been  going  on  in  the  past  and  which  are  not  yet  completed,  but 
which  are  always  directed  toward  realizing  in  the  universe  a  grand 
ideal.  We  are  no  longer  shut  up  to  reasoning  from  the  structure 
of  the  universe  as  a  product  finished  at  a  stroke  in  the  creation. 
We  are  able  to  look  into  the  past  and  catch  some  glimpses  of  the 
processes  by  which  the  world  was  formed  and  from  their  discov¬ 
ered  effects  learn  something  of  the  agencies  which  were  active  in 
them.  We  thus  discover  that  the  gradations  which  we  have 
observed  in  nature  were  actual  historical  results  of  successive  ad¬ 
vances  of  the  energy  working  in  nature  and  revealing  new  poten¬ 
cies  in  new  products  which  mark  grades  or  stages  in  the  progress 
of  the  universe.  Thus  while  the  universe  goes  on  in  order  and 
uniformity  and  so  seems  to  be  advancing  in  a  circle,  we  now  dis¬ 
cover  that  the  seeming  circle  is  a  spiral  which  at  each  return  is 
on  a  higher  plane  than  before.  And,  as  an  organism  is  charac¬ 
terized  by  germination  and  growth  and  by  the  subordination  of 
one  organ  and  its  function  to  another  and  of  all  to  the  whole  or¬ 
ganism,  the  universe  in  these  respects  has  more  analogy  to  organ¬ 
ism  than  to  mechanism.  And  as  the  universe  advances  to  the 
revelation  of  mechanical  force  and  of  the  highest  powers  of  it  in 
molecular  motion,  to  the  revelation  of  the  higher  chemical  or  ele¬ 
mental  force,  to  the  revelation  of  the  power  of  life,  and  ulti¬ 
mately  to  the  revelation  of  personal  and  spiritual  power  in  man, 
we  are  obliged  to  recognize  behind  all  that  appears  in  the  uni¬ 
verse  a  power  transcending  it  and  revealing  itself  progressively 
in  it.1 


1  Phil.  Basis  of  Theism,  pp.  491-502. 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  NATURE. 


279 


The  theory  of  evolution,  therefore,  confirms  rather  than  annuls 
the  evidence  of  a  power  in  and  above  nature  directing  its  ener¬ 
gies  toward  the  realization  of  an  ideal.  We  are  not  confined  to 
evidences  of  the  progressive  realization  of  ideals  in  particular 
structures,  processes  and  systems,  but  find  the  same  in  the  evo¬ 
lution  of  the  cosmos  as  a  whole.  Mr.  Wordsworth  says:  “The 
idea  of  law  conceived  as  a  formula  capable  of  enunciation  once 
for  all  in  set  terms  and  having  an  eternal  changeless  validity,  has 
gradually  given  way  before  that  of  process  in  almost  all  depart¬ 
ments  of  scientific  observation.'7 1  But  the  fact  of  process  does 
not  do  away  with  fixed  law.  It  is  essential  to  the  idea  of  a  pro¬ 
cess  that  it  go  on  under  fixed  law.  The  law  is  revealed  in  the 
process.  The  error  to  be  corrected  is  that  the  universe  was  fin¬ 
ished  at  once  in  a  fiat  of  creation,  and  that  it  can  be  studied  only 
as  a  finished  and  fixed  product.  Whereas  we  now  know  its  pres¬ 
ent  condition  to  be  the  result  of  immensely  long  processes  in  the 
past,  which  in  fact  have  realized  higher  and  higher  ends,  and 
have  culminated  in  the  appearance  of  rational  man.  Thus  it  is 
found  to  be  a  fact  that  the  power  which  energizes  in  nature  has 
been  working  toward  the  realization  of  an  ideal,  and  we  have  the 
basis  for  an  induction  that  it  will  continue  to  work  toward  an 
ideal  in  the  future. 

Whatever  may  have  been  the  origin  of  the  universe,  its  sub¬ 
sequent  condition  at  any  point  of  time  is  not  the  product  of  an 
immediate  fiat  of  God’s  will.  It  is  the  result  of  a  process,  in 
which  the  existing  material  and  agencies  have  been  prepared 
for  higher  manifestations  ;  and  the  progress  is  limited  by  the 
material  in  which  and  the  agencies  through  which  the  result  is 
effected.  According  to  Mr.  Spencer  the  doctrine  of  evolution  is 
that  the  type  of  the  universe  is  an  organism  which  grows,  and 
not  a  machine  which  is  made  and  finished  once  for  all.  Chris¬ 
tian  theism  accepts  this  ;  it  is  in  harmony  with  the  words  of 
Jesus,  who  declares  that  the  type  also  of  the  spiritual  system, 
the  kingdom  of  God  on  earth,  is  the  growing  grain  :  first  the 
blade,  then  the  ear,  then  the  full  corn  in  the  ear. 

Because  the  action  is  progressive  through  the  development  of 
finite  material  and  the  action  of  finite  agencies,  it  follows  that 
the  universe  at  every  period  in  time  and  every  boundary  in  space 
is  unfinished  and  incomplete.  Therefore  if  we  find  imperfection 
in  it,  if  we  can  conceive  of  a  universe  more  nearly  perfect  than 
this,  if  we  find  evil  in  it,  this  is  not  inconsistent  with  the  pro- 
1  The  One  Religion;  Bampton  Lectures,  1881,  p.  307. 


280 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


gressive  realization  of  a  perfect  universe,  but  is  incidental  to  the 
progressiveness.  In  ages  before  man  existed  it  was  less  devel¬ 
oped,  and  therefore  more  imperfect  than  now.  So  much  prog¬ 
ress  is  a  fact  already  known.  In  philosophy  we  know,  from  the 
idea  of  the  infinite  and  the  finite,  that  if  the  universe  is  the  rev¬ 
elation  of  the  infinite  in  the  finite,  the  revelation  can  never  be 
finished  or  complete.  And  now  physical  science,  discovering  that 
the  universe  is  in  fact  progressive,  teaches  that  it  is  always  work¬ 
ing  toward  the  realization  of  an  ideal  archetype,  but  is  never  its 
finished  and  complete  realization.  In  the  infinite,  however  man¬ 
ifested  in  the  finite,  there  is  always  something  remaining  to  be 
manifested. 

Evolution,  therefore,  does  not  annul  the  evidence  of  the  ex¬ 
istence  of  God  found  in  particular  beings  and  arrangements  in 
nature.  The  fact  of  a  process  does  not  annul  the  facts  of  order 
and  law,  and  of  progress  toward  realizing  an  ideal.  On  the  other 
hand  it  presents  the  argument  on  the  grandest  scale  by  empha¬ 
sizing  its  application  to  the  universe  as  a  whole.1  It  shows  that 
the  universe  from  its  beginning,  as  a  whole  as  well  as  in  its 
parts,  in  all  times  as  well  as  in  all  places,  has  revealed  the  pres¬ 
ence  and  action  of  a  power  continuously  and  progressively  work¬ 
ing  towards  the  realization  of  one  grand  ideal.  And  its  not 
realizing  the  ideal  in  its  fulness  at  any  point  of  time  is  not  fail¬ 
ure  and  defeat ;  it  results  from  fulness,  not  from  deficiency ;  the 
outflowing  can  never  be  finished  or  complete,  because  it  is  con¬ 
tinuous  fulness  which  overflows.  The  divine  communication  in 
and  to  the  finite  is  ever  greater  and  greater ;  but  in  all  commu¬ 
nication  of  the  infinite  there  is  always  something  which  remains 
uncommunicated.  That  is  the  Infinite  itself  ;  the  Incommuni¬ 
cable  Name. 

3.  Nature  in  its  beauty  reveals  ideals  of  perfection. 

Beauty,  as  the  revelation  or  at  least  the  indication  or  sugges¬ 
tion  of  an  ideal  of  perfection  in  some  concrete  object  or  combina¬ 
tion  of  objects,  always  reveals  mind.  In  appreciating  beauty  the 
mind  sees  in  the  beautiful  object  the  revelation  of  an  ideal  crea¬ 
tion  by  a  mind.2 

1  “  The  force  of  evolution  is  as  brute  and  unconscious  as  that  of  fire ;  there 
is  no  more  royalty  in  it  than  in  the  log  which  Jupiter  threw  down  to  the  frogs. 
In  its  descent  it  has  made  a  frightful  splash  in  the  pool  of  science  ;  but  the 
world  will  recover  from  it,  as  it  did  from  the  dangerous  doctrine  of  the  earth’s 
motion.”  — Prof.  Benj.  Peirce,  Ideality  of  the  Physical  Sciences ,  p.  35. 

2  Phil.  Basis  of  Theism,  pp.  227-243,  250. 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  NATURE. 


281 


The  physical  world  is  full  of  beauty  and  sublimity.  The  cos¬ 
mos,  as  we  think  of  it  in  its  unity,  awakens  the  emotion  of  the 
sublime.  We  see  expressed  in  it  an  archetypal  ideal  of  all  things 
in  the  unity  and  harmony  of  a  system. 

Individual  objects  in  nature  and  their  combinations  and  ar¬ 
rangements  are  beautiful.  In  fact  one  seldom  gets  anywhere  a 
wide  view  of  nature  without  finding  it  either  beautiful  or  sublime. 

Painters  and  poets  are  interpreters  of  nature.  The  44  vision 
and  faculty  divine  of  genius  ”  sees  the  significance  of  nature  and 
the  ideals  it  reveals,  and  in  art  or  poetry  sets  them  forth  to  the 
view  of  others.  The  artist  reveals  the  significance  of  nature, 
not  by  copying  its  forms,  but  by  seizing  the  ideals  which  they 
express,  the  spirit  which  reveals  itself  through  them.  Thus  in 
these  creations  all  men  may  see  what  genius  sees  in  nature,  what 
nature  reveals  to  the  most  clear-seeing  and  deep-seeing  minds. 

If  to  these  minds  the  forms  of  nature  reveal  ideals  of  the  per¬ 
fect  and  so  kindle  them  to  enthusiasm  in  aesthetic  admiration, 
then,  in  all  these  beautiful  forms,  are  revealed  the  creations  of 
some  mind.  For  how  can  a  poet  or  artist  find  nature  full  of 
these  ideals,  unless  first  some  mind  has  expressed  its  own  ideals 
in  nature’s  forms  ? 

IV.  Nature  subserves  uses.  —  Nature  subserves  the  uses 
of  sentient  beings  and  preeminently  of  man. 

Here  we  come  to  the  teleological  evidence  in  its  narrowest 
meaning.  Much  of  the  discussion  on  both  sides  has  been  mis¬ 
leading  because  it  has  accepted  this  as  the  whole.  But  while  it 
is  not  the  whole  it  presents  a  part  of  the  evidence  which  is  im¬ 
portant  to  its  full  significance.  We  have  been  considering  the 
-  internal  end,  the  realization  of  a  plan,  ideal  or  system  in  the 
particular  arrangements  and  processes  of  nature  and  in  nature  as 
a  whole.  We  come  now  to  the  external  end,  to  the  subservience 
of  physical  agents  and  processes  to  the  uses  of  sentient  and  pre¬ 
eminently  of  rational  beings. 

Here  also  two  lines  of  thought  present  themselves :  First,  the 
subservience  of  particular  agents  and  processes  in  nature  to  the 
uses  of  sentient  and  preeminently  of  rational  beings ;  Secondly, 
the  subservience  of  nature  as  a  whole  or  cosmos  to  these  ends. 

1.  The  evidence  in  the  first  of  these  lines  of  thought  is  too 
abundant  to  be  presented  in  its  details.  It  will  be  sufficient  to 
exemplify  it  in  a  few  instances. 

In  the  outset  it  must  be  noticed  that  the  cosmic  agencies  of 
inorganic  nature  are  subservient  to  all  organic  life. 


282 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


Jesus  says,  “  Consider  the  lilies,  how  they  grow  ;  ”  he  teaches 
that  it  is  God’s  care  which  clothes  them  with  beauty.  Accord¬ 
ingly  we  find  that  every  agency  in  nature  is  laid  under  contribu¬ 
tion  to  promote  the  lily’s  growth.  The  sun  quickens  it  by  its 
beams ;  the  earth  and  the  atmosphere  contribute  material  for  its 
structure ;  the  ocean  gives  water  which  the  winds  bear  to  the 
growing  flower  ;  all  chemical  and  organic  forces  are  energizing 
in  it ;  gravitation  bends  its  gracefully  drooping  head. 

Jesus  says  that  God  cares  for  every  sparrow  and  notes  its  fall. 
And  science  reveals  in  the  little  bird  the  evidence  of  a  divine 
knowledge  and  power.  Examine  it  and  learn  all  which  may  be 
known  about  it.  But  this  would  involve  an  encyclopaedia  of 
knowledge.  There  must  be  the  knowledge  of  mechanics  to  un¬ 
derstand  the  leverage  of  its  limbs  and  the  flow  of  its  blood ;  of 
chemistry,  to  know  the  composition  of  its  body ;  of  terrestrial 
physics,  to  explain  its  weight  and  its  relation  to  the  air  in  flying ; 
of  anatomy  and  physiology,  to  know  its  organs  and  their  func¬ 
tions  ;  of  zoology,  to  know  its  place  and  relations  in  the  animal 
system  ;  of  physical  geography,  to  learn  its  distribution  over  the 
earth ;  of  palaeontology,  to  learn  when  it  first  appeared ;  and  of 
some  of  the  profoundest  questions  of  metaphysics,  to  learn  what 
its  life  is,  what  is  the  instinct  by  which  it  builds  its  nest,  and 
wherein  its  intelligence  differs,  if  at  all,  from  human  reason. 
Thus  the  whole  compass  of  human  science  is  concentrated  and 
exemplified  in  a  sparrow. 

And  this  is  how  the  lily  grows  and  the  sparrow  is  formed 
under  the  care  of  God.  And  this  concentration  of  thought  and 
energy  on  so  small  a  creature  is  no  evidence  of  defect  of  power, 
but  of  the  overflowing  fulness  of  the  power  always  energizing  in 
the  world.  It  is  no  evidence  of  waste  of  energy  on  a  small  effect. 
The  lily  and  the  sparrow  are  small  only  in  bulk  ;  they  are  great 
as  the  blossoms  of  the  great  tree  of  the  universe,  after  its  growth 
through  ages  maturing  itself  to  capacity  for  the  great  result,  the 
blossoming  into  life,  the  production  of  living  organisms.  And 
since  the  universe  must  mature  for  ages  before  it  is  fitted  for  the 
production  of  organic  life,  the  lily  and  the  sparrow  reveal  in 
themselves  the  product  of  cosmic  forces  through  ages,  as  the  fruit 
of  a  tree  reveals  the  result  of  years  of  growth.  Each  is  a  phys¬ 
ical  universe  in  little,  so  far  as  the  cosmic  powers  were  developed 
at  the  appearance  of  vegetable  and  animal  life.  The  powers  of 
the  universe  have  concentrated  their  energies  in  developing  a 
lily  or  a  sparrow  as  if  this  little  thing  were  the  only  object  of 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  NATURE. 


283 


action,  the  one  ultimate  and  highest  end  of  the  universe ;  and 
the  same  is  done  for  every  other  organism  ;  as  every  fruit  on  a 
tree  is  the  product  of  the  united  energies  of  the  whole  tree. 
And  yet  the  universe  and  all  its  energies  remain  un wasted  for 
new  productions.  This  is  not  a  deficiency  of  power  but  an  inex¬ 
haustible  fulness  ;  not  waste,  but  an  expenditure  commensurate 
with  the  resources  of  the  agent.  If  God  does  anything  he  must 
do  it  as  God.  And  every  lily  and  every  sparrow,  because  it  is 
the  work  of  his  hand,  reveals  in  itself  the  thought  and  power  of 
God. 

Thus  we  see  that  all  cosmic  forces  of  inorganic  nature  are  sub¬ 
servient  to  organic  life. 

In  the  next  place,  the  vegetable  kingdom  is  subservient  to  the 
animal.  Unorganized  matter  cannot  sustain  and  nourish  animal 
life ;  it  must  be  organized  into  plants  before  it  can  be  food  for 
sentient  beings.  It  was  impossible  for  animals  to  exist  on  the 
earth  until  it  had  been  clothed  with  vegetation.  The  animal 
kingdom  depends  on  the  vegetable  kingdom  for  its  existence. 
The  latter  exists  to  subserve  the  uses  of  the  former. 

In  the  next  place,  there  is  a  remarkable  adjustment  of  the 
organs,  functions  and  instincts  of  sensitive  beings  to  their  envi¬ 
ronment.  The  being  and  its  environment  are  fitted  to  each  other 
as  a  coin  to  the  die,  or  a  molding  to  the  matrix.  They  seem  to 
have  been  made  for  each  other.  As  Goethe  puts  it  poetically,  so 
it  is  scientifically  true  :  — 

“  From  the  cold  earth,  in  earliest  spring, 

A  flower  peeped  out,  dear,  fragrant  thing! 

Then  sipped  a  bee,  as  half  afraid  ; 

Sure  each  was  for  the  other  made.”  1 

There  are  adaptations  or  adjustments  of  particular  organs  to 
the  medium  in  which  they  severally  act ;  as  the  eye  to  the  light, 
the  lungs  to  the  air.  There  are  provisions  in  the  environment 
for  supplying  nourishment  to  organisms.  There  are  adaptations 
of  particular  beings  to  their  peculiar  environment.  A  fish  has  gills 
instead  of  lungs  ;  a  bird  in  its  entire  organization  is  constructed 
for  flying.  Dr.  Darwin  in  his  treatise  on  Orchids  describes  the 
fertilization  of  flowers  by  the  action  of  insects,  and  points  out 
various  remarkable  contrivances  in  the  flower  to  attract  the  in¬ 
sects  and  to  direct  their  action  so  as  rightly  to  distribute  the 
pollen.  There  are  changes  in  the  organs  and  functions  of  the 
same  individual  to  meet  changing  conditions  of  life,  as  in  frogs 

1  Gleich  und  Gleich. 


284 


THE  SELF-EE YELATION  OF  GOD. 


and  insects  in  their  several  transformations,  and  in  the  gradual 
extinction  of  an  organ  when  in  a  different  environment  there  is 
no  further  use  for  it.  There  are  also  temporary  changes  to  meet 
a  temporary  change  of  condition  ;  the  scent  of  a  pheasant  is 
suppressed  during  incubation,  and  this  protects  her  from  dogs.1 
There  is  a  power  of  modification  to  meet  new  conditions,  as  the 
healing  power  in  nature,  the  marvelous  power  of  perception  in 
the  finger’s  end  of  the  blind.  There  are  guiding  and  preserving 
instincts. 

There  is  also  the  great  complexity  and  nicety  of  the  adjust¬ 
ments  on  which  life  depends.  No  single  agent  or  action  effects 
such  an  adjustment.  It  is  the  result  of  different  or  opposing 
forces  nicely  balanced  ;  of  agencies  acting  under  different  laws 
nicely  concurring  to  produce  a  definite  result.  Any  disturbance 
in  the  proportions  or  the  adjustment  would  change  the  effect, 
and  might  transform  what  had  sustained  life  into  a  power  de¬ 
structive  of  it.  The  air  is  composed  of  the  same  elements  as 
nitric  acid,  and  if  chemically  combined  the  air  might  be  trans¬ 
formed  into  that  corrosive  agent.  The  chemical  principles  of 
tea  and  strychnine  are  composed  of  the  same  elements  differ¬ 
ently  combined.  The  whole  earth,  with  its  atmosphere,  is  com¬ 
posed  of  sixty-four  elements  ;  much  the  larger  number  of  these 
exist,  so  far  as  known,  in  very  small  quantities.  It  has  been 
estimated  that  some  twenty  of  these  make  up  almost  the  entire 
globe.  It  is  evident  that  there  must  be  great  variety  and  nicety 
of  their  combinations  to  form  the  multitude  of  diverse  kinds  of 
things  in  the  world.  And  these  nice  adjustments  of  agents, 
forces  and  laws  imply  the  action  of  mind.  And  since  it  is  by 
these  that  sentient  beings  are  sustained  and  nourished,  it  is  plain 
that  nature  is  constituted  and  administered  in  subservience  to 
the  uses  of  sentient  beings.  Evolution,  if  true,  does  not  alter 
these  facts  ;  nor  does  it  invalidate  the  argument  that  the  facts 
reveal  mind.  For  if  these  adjustments  come  to  pass  in  a  process 
of  evolution,  the  original  constitution  of  that  which  is  evolved, 
the  appearance  at  the  fit  time  of  organic  and  then  of  sentient 
beings,  and  the  direction  of  the  evolution  to  effect  the  adjust¬ 
ments  necessary  to  their  preservation  and  sustenance,  still  reveal 
the  agency  of  mind. 

In  like  manner  nature  subserves  the  uses  of  man  as  one  class 
of  its  sentient  beings.  We  find  in  him  similar  adaptations  and 
adjustments  to  his  environment.  The  earth  is  habitable.  It 

1  Nature,  May  15,  1873,  pp.  48-50. 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  NATURE. 


285 


yields  him  food  fitted  to  his  needs.  It  supplies  him  with  wood, 
stone,  coal,  the  earths  and  the  metals,  material  for  building,  for 
tools  and  rhachinery.  The  strata  of  its  crust  are  tilted  up,  giving 
access  to  buried  mineral  deposits  which  he  could  never  have 
reached  had  the  strata  been  uniformly  horizontal ;  and  thus  its 
surface  is  thrown  up  into  mountains,  hills  and  valleys,  giving  a 
bed  for  the  ocean,  and  springs  and  streams  of  living  water,  and 
fit  sites  for  happy  homes.  All  the  energies  of  nature  wait  his 
bidding  and  do  his  work.  Earth,  air,  fire  and  water  offer  them¬ 
selves  for  his  use. 

In  all  instances  of  this  kind  the  adaptations  and  subservience 
to  uses  are  facts  found  in  nature  and  scientifically  established. 
The  theist  says  they  are  evidence  of  rational  intelligence  direct¬ 
ing  the  plan  and  development  of  nature  to  rational  ends. 

2.  We  come  now  to  the  second  line  of  thought:  Nature  as  a 
whole  is  subservient  to  the  spiritual  system  and  to  man  as  be¬ 
longing  to  it. 

Here  we  are  to  consider  what  is  the  external  end,  the  end 
beyond  itself,  for  which  the  physical  system  as  a  whole  exists. 

It  may  safely  be  said  that  to  the  rational  spirit  of  man,  with 
all  his  spiritual  faculties  and  susceptibilities  awake,  the  phys¬ 
ical  system  in  itself  presents  no  worthy  end  for  its  existence,  no 
end  which  can  meet  and  satisfy  the  demands  of  reason  and  of 
the  spiritual  life.  We  must  look  beyond  nature  to  find  the  end 
for  which  it  exists. 

Beyond  nature  there  is  nothing  known  to  us  but  the  sphere 
of  the  spiritual  and  personal.  This  sphere  man  already  knows 
in  his  consciousness  of  himself  and  his  knowledge  of  his  fellow- 
men.  He  knows  it  as  a  sphere  distinct  from  and  above  all 
impersonal  being  and  all  that  belongs  merely  to  the  physical  sys¬ 
tem.  He  knows  nature  by  observation  to  be  a  realm  of  means 
and  instrumentalities.  Everything  in  it  is  the  effect  of  a  pre¬ 
vious  cause  and  a  means  or  instrument  of  a  subsequent  effect. 
Everything  in  it  is  an  intermediate,  receiving  from  something 
before  and  transmitting  to  something  coming  after.  Everything 
in  it  exists  only  as  a  means  subordinate  to  an  end.  On  the  con¬ 
trary,  in  his  own  moral  consciousness  of  freedom  and  personality 
he  knows  the  sphere  of  the  spiritual  and  personal  to  be  a  realm 
of  ends.  He  knows  that  a  rational  free  person  is  not  a  tool  to  be 
used,  but  a  being  to  be  served.  He  rightly  assumes  that  in  this 
higher  system,  this  realm  of  ends,  the  highest  and  true  end  of 
the  physical  system  may  be  found.1 

1  Phil.  Basis  of  Theism,  pp.  357-361. 


286 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


It  is  a  fact  that,  so  far  as  we  on  this  earth  know  the  evolu¬ 
tion  of  the  cosmos,  it  has  culminated  in  the  appearance  of  men, 
of  rational  moral  agents.  It  has  culminated  in  the  appearance 
of  just  this  moral  system,  this  realm  of  ends.  And  this  has 
been  the  highest  result  of  the  progressive  evolution  of  the  cos¬ 
mos  through  successive  higher  and  higher  stages  of  being  until 
man  appeared. 

We  therefore  infer  that  the  physical  system  as  a  whole  exists 
not  for  itself,  but  as  subservient  to  the  bringing  in  of  the  spirit¬ 
ual  system  and  of  man  as  belonging  to  it.1 

This  may  be  illustrated  from  organic  life  and  growth.  If  one 
watches  the  germination  of  a  peach -stone  and  its  subsequent 
growth,  the  first  revelation  of  its  living  force  and  its  specific 
character  is  the  pale  and  tender  shoot ;  the  next  higher  is  the 
leaf,  then  higher  still  is  the  blossom ;  and  the  last  and  consum¬ 
mate  revelation  is  the  ripe  fruit.  When  we  see  this  highest  and 
consummate  revelation  of  the  living  force  and  specific  character 
of  the  peach-stone,  we  conclude  that  the  tree  exists  to  produce 
peaches ;  for  that  in  fact  is  what  it  does. 

The  most  perfect  type  of  the  evolving  universe  is  a  living  and 
growing  organism.  The  universe  in  its  development  reveals  its 
power  and  its  specific  character,  first  in  mechanical  action  pre¬ 
paring  the  homogeneous  material  for  chemical  combinations ; 
then  in  chemical  affinities,  preparing  the  material  for  vital  action ; 
then  in  vegetable  life,  preparing  the  earth  for  the  sustenance  of 
animals ;  then  in  animal  life,  fructifying  and  ripening  in  rational 
man.  We  thus  know  the  fact  that  its  highest  product,  so  far  as 
its  gradations  come  under  our  observation  in  the  history  of  this 
planet,  is  rational  man.  And  we  reasonably  conclude  that  this 
earth  exists  for  the  production  of  rational  man ;  and  the  further 
inference  is,  that  the  universe  exists  for  the  production  of  rational 
beings  as  its  highest  and  consummate  product. 

We  also  infer  that  rational  man  is,  so  far  as  this  earth  is 

1  “  There  is  in  every  earnest  thinker  a  craving  after  a  final  cause ;  and  this 
craving  can  no  more  be  extinguished  than  our  belief  in  objective  reality.  .  .  . 
The  glorious  consummation  toward  which  organic  evolution  is  tending  is  the 
production  of  the  highest  and  most  perfect  psychical  life.  .  .  .  When  from 
the  dawn  of  life  we  see  all  things  working  together  toward  the  evolution  of 
the  highest  spiritual  attributes  of  man,  we  know,  however  the  words  may 
stumble  in  which  we  try  to  say  it,  that  God  is  in  the  deepest  sense  a  moral 
Being.”—  John  Fiske,  The  Idea  of  God,  pp.  138,  160,  167. 

Mr.  Spencer  speaks  of  “  the  naturally  revealed  end  towards  which  the  Power 
manifested  in  Evolution  works.”  —  Data  of  Ethics,  §  62. 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  NATURE. 


28T 


concerned,  the  being  to  whose  uses  preeminently  nature  is  sub¬ 
ordinate  and  subservient ;  that  nature  is  subservient  to  man  pre¬ 
eminently  as  a  rational  and  spiritual  being  and  belonging  to  the 
spiritual  system ;  it  is  subservient  to  the  spiritual  interests  and 
ends  of  man ;  and  that  the  physical  system  as  a  whole  is  subordi¬ 
nate  and  subservient  to  the  spiritual  system. 

This  is  inferred  from  the  fact  that  in  the  evolution  of  the  uni¬ 
verse  rational,  spiritual  beings  in  a  rational,  spiritual  system 
have  actually  been  produced,  and  are  actually  its  highest  and 
consummate  product.  Man  finds  himself  rational,  spiritual  and 
therefore  supernatural.  Born  of  nature  he  finds  himself  above 
nature.  He  finds  himself  personal  and  free,  determining  himself, 
exerting  and  directing  his  own  energies,  seeing  rational  truth  and 
knowing  himself  subject  to  rational,  moral  and  spiritual  law ;  he 
sees  himself  with  his  fellow-men  rational  and  free  like  himself, 
united  under  moral  and  spiritual  law  in  a  moral  and  spiritual 
system.  Here  is  the  indisputable  fact  that  nature  in  its  pro¬ 
cesses  and  progressive  development  has  issued  in  the  production, 
either  by  itself  or  by  a  power  present  in  it  but  above  it,  of  ra¬ 
tional,  moral  and  spiritual  beings,  knowing  themselves  to  be 
under  a  common  law  in  a  rational,  moral  and  spiritual  system. 
And  this  is  the  highest  and  consummate  product  of  the  develop¬ 
ment  of  the  universe. 

We  say  then  that  nature  exists  for  the  spiritual  interests  of 
man,  and  that  the  physical  system  is  subordinate  and  subservient 
to  a  spiritual  system,  because,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  rational,  moral 
and  spiritual  beings,  recognizing  themselves  as  under  rational, 
moral  and  spiritual  law  in  a  moral  and  spiritual  system,  are  actu¬ 
ally  its  highest  and  consummate  product. 

We  have  further  evidence  in  the  observed  fact  that  the  phys¬ 
ical  system  gives  scope  to  the  rational,  moral  and  spiritual  activ¬ 
ity  and  culture  of  man.  In  contact  with  it  man  is  wakened  to 
consciousness  of  himself.  In  the  investigation  of  it  his  intellect 
is  quickened  and  developed.  In  subduing,  cultivating,  develop¬ 
ing  and  civilizing  nature  he  subdues,  cultivates,  develops  and  civ¬ 
ilizes  himself.  In  resisting  temptation  from  the  nature-side  of  his 
own  being  and  subjecting  it  to  the  spiritual  he  develops  his  own 
spiritual  purity,  insight  and  power.  And  the  physical  universe 
in  its  grandeur  reveals  the  glory  of  God  and  is  a  magnificent  and 
fit  temple  for  his  worship  and  service. 

V.  Unity  of  nature  and  the  supernatural.  —  To 
complete  this  evidence  it  is  necessary  to  show  that  in  theism,  and 


288 


THE  SELF-EE  VELATION  OF  GOD. 


in  it  alone,  we  find  adequate  ground  for  the  complete  harmony 
and  unity  of  the  two  systems,  the  physical  and  the  spiritual, 
under  the  true  law  of  continuity. 

In  the  foregoing  discussion  we  have  opened  to  our  view  the 
universe  consisting  of  two  grand  systems,  of  nature  and  of  spirit. 
In  the  subordination  of  the  former  to  the  latter  we  see  the  only 
conceivable  end  worthy  of  the  existence  of  the  physical  universe 
in  its  vastness,  magnificence  and  grandeur.  And  in  this  is  dis¬ 
covered  the  solution  of  the  otherwise  intractable  problem  of  find¬ 
ing  harmony  and  unity  in  the  duality  of  the  natural  and  the  su¬ 
pernatural,  of  matter  and  mind. 

Reason  demands  for  the  universe  unity  of  dependence  on  some 
common  original  ground  or  cause,  unity  of  order  and  law,  of 
common  intelligibility  and  significance,  and  of  rational  end ;  and 
theism  meets  and  satisfies  these  demands.  It  presents,  as  the 
absolute  ground  or  cause  from  which  all  things  originate,  the 
absolute  Reason,  self-exerting  and  self  -  directing.  In  the  last 
analysis  of  physical  force  science  always  finds  a  power  transcend¬ 
ing  it  and  suggestive  of  will-power.  In  all  its  explorations  of 
nature  and  its  explanations  of  if  by  natural  laws,  it  carries  us 
into  sight  of  the  mystery  of  the  infinite  which  no  natural  law 
can  explain.  But  theism  shows  us  the  mystery  itself  as  the 
absolute  Reason  progressively  revealing  itself  in  the  universe. 
Theism  finds  the  order,  law  and  significance  of  nature  in  the  fact 
that  it  is  the  expression  of  the  archetypal  thought  of  absolute 
Reason  in  conformity  with  rational  laws.  It  finds  unity  of  end 
in  the  subordination  of  nature  to  the  spiritual  system.  The  spir¬ 
itual  system  is  in  its  essence  a  realm  of  ends  ;  every  spiritual  or 
personal  being  has  rights  and  is  in  himself  an  object  of  service, 
never  a  tool  to  be  used.  In  the  sublime  ideas  of  spiritual  de¬ 
velopment,  of  the  realization  of  the  kingdom  of  God,  the  reign 
of  peace  and  love  on  earth  and  its  perpetuation  in  heaven,  we 
see  an  end  to  be  attained  by  the  existence  of  the  universe  which 
reason  pronounces  of  true  worth.  Theism,  therefore,  gives  the 
harmony  and  unity  of  the  physical  and  spiritual  systems  in  the 
universe  as  the  creation  of  God,  the  absolute  Reason,  dependent 
on  him,  expressing  his  archetypal  thought,  ordered  under  ra¬ 
tional  laws,  and  progressively  realizing  in  the  spiritual  sphere 
the  ideals  and  ends  of  perfect  wisdom  and  love. 

Here  also  we  find  the  synthesis  of  nature,  man  and  God.  The 
ultimate  significance  and  the  deepest  reality  of  the  universe  are 
the  rational  principles  and  truths,  the  thoughts  of  the  absolute 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  NATURE. 


289 


Reason  which  it  expresses  and  in  which  it  reveals  God.  Theism 
explains  why  in  the  investigation  of  the  universe  we  always  find 
science.  It  teaches  that  the  universe  is  the  expression  or  mani¬ 
festation  of  the  thoughts  of  God ;  it  is  the  revelation  of  the  eter¬ 
nal  Reason.  And  since  the  reason  of  man  is  the  same  in  kind 
with  the  universal  Reason  and  participates  in  its  light,  man  can 
apprehend  the  universe  in  his  thought  because  it  is  the  expres¬ 
sion  of  the  divine  thought ;  the  world  without  is  the  expression 
and  revelation  of  the  spiritual  principles  within.  Here  we  find 
the  true  meaning  of  a  principle  of  Kant’s  philosophy :  “  Man’s 
knowledge  of  his  own  spirit  is  the  starting-point  and  key  of  his 
knowledge  of  the  world.”  Here  we  find  the  synthesis  of  nature 
and  spirit ;  nature  is  not  antagonistic  to  spirit,  for  it  is  the  ex¬ 
pression  of  the  spirit.  Here  we  find  the  synthesis  of  nature, 
man  and  God ;  for  the  spiritual  system  and  the  physical  are  the 
manifestation  of  God,  the  absolute  Reason,  and  are  in  unity 
through  their  common  relation  to  him.  The  eternal  Spirit  re¬ 
veals  himself,  not  in  the  spiritual  system  only,  but  in  the  phys¬ 
ical  system  which  to  superficial  thought  seems  entirely  con¬ 
trary  to  him.  As  we  think  more  deeply  and  devoutly,  we  find 
ourselves  saying  with  Carlyle :  “  The  whole  creation  seems 

more  and  more  divine  to  me,  the  natural  more  and  more  super¬ 
natural.”  1 

The  constitution  of  the  physical  system  is  the  archetypal 
thought  of  God  expressed  in  it.  Its  invariable  factual  sequences 
which  are  called  the  laws  of  nature  and  constitute  its  uniformity 
and  continuity,  are  accordant  with  the  truths,  laws,  ideals  and 
ends  which  are  eternal  in  the  absolute  Reason.  Mr.  Drummond 
maintains  that  the  laws  of  nature  extend  to  the  spiritual  world 
and  are  its  laws.  He  writes  in  defense  of  theism  and  with  the 
laudable  intent  to  remove  the  common  error  that  nature  and 
spirit  are  contradictory  and  separated  by  an  impassable  gulf,  and 
to  show  that  the  law  of  continuity  extends  from  the  one  to  the 
other  and  connects  them  in  unity.  But  his  way  of  putting  it  is 
that  the  laws  of  nature  extend  to  the  spiritual  world.  This  im¬ 
plies  that  spirit  is  generated  from  nature,  not  that  nature  is  the 
manifestation  of  spirit.  In  the  last  century  skepticism  in  France 
busied  itself  with  proving  that  the  spiritual  and  the  material,  the 
supernatural  and  the  natural  are  the  same  ;  but  it  was  trying  to 
do  it,  not  by  lifting  the  natural  into  relation  with  the  spiritual, 
but  by  sinking  the  spiritual  into  the  natural.  The  materialistic 

1  Froude’s  Life  of  Carlyle,  vol.  ii.  p.  258. 

19 


290 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


evolutionists  of  the  present  day  are  trying  to  do  the  same.  Mr. 
Drummond  does  not  accept  this  inference ;  he  even  says  ex¬ 
plicitly  that  the  spiritual  precedes  the  natural,  and  that  its  laws 
are  projected  into  the  natural ;  he  speaks  of  matter  as  an  x  or 
symbol  and  so  verges  close  upon  idealism.1  From  this  the  logical 
inference  is  that  the  principles  of  the  spiritual  system  pass  over 
into  the  natural  and  determine  its  factual  sequences  and  evolu¬ 
tion.  He  is  inconsistent  with  himself  in  teaching  the  contrary, 
that  the  laws  of  nature  pass  over  to  the  spiritual  system  and  de¬ 
termine  it.  Yet  this  latter  is  his  doctrine  both  in  his  statement 
of  his  principle  and  in  the  successive  chapters  in  which  he  ap¬ 
plies  natural  laws  to  spiritual  facts.  Thus  he  unwittingly  con¬ 
cedes  the  essential  premises  of  materialistic  evolution.  But  in 
truth  it  is  the  spiritual  which  gives  laws  to  the  natural,  not  the 
natural  which  gives  laws  to  the  spiritual.  It  is  the  spirit  which 
manifests  itself  in  nature,  not  nature  which  manifests  itself  in 
spirit.  The  law  of  uniformity  and  continuity  extends  through 
the  realms  both  of  spirit  and  of  nature ;  but  it  passes  from  the 
realm  of  spirit  into  that  of  nature,  not  from  the  realm  of  nature 
into  that  of  spirit.  The  uniformity  and  continuity  of  the  uni¬ 
verse  are  the  uniformity  and  continuity  of  the  absolute  Spirit 
continuously  and  progressively  expressing  the  truths  which  are 
eternal  in  the  unchanging  Reason,  by  action  according  with  its 
unchanging  laws,  and  realizing  its  unchanging  ideals  and  ends. 

Accordingly,  if  I  may  use  a  significant  expression  of  Hegel, 
man  finds  himself  “  at  home”2  in  nature,  not  merely  because 
as  to  his  physical  organization  he  is  in  nature  and  is  acted  on 
by  it  through  his  sensorium,  but  also  because  he  finds  in  it  the 
principles  of  his  own  reason,  in  its  accordance  with  which  he  can 
comprehend  it  in  science ;  in  studying  it,  he  finds  it  revealing 
his  own  spiritual  being  to  himself  and  opening  to  him  the  range 
and  power  of  his  own  intelligence  ;  he  finds  its  correspondence 
with  his  own  spiritual  life,  so  that  it  furnishes  the  symbols  which 
illustrate  and  the  words  which  declare  spiritual  realities  ;  in  its 
forms  of  beauty  he  rejoices  to  discover  his  own  ideals  of  per¬ 
fection  ;  and  everywhere  sees  the  wisdom  of  God,  the  perfect 
Reason.  The  words  of  Sidney  Lanier  are  hardly  too  strong :  — 

“  His  heart  found  neighbors  in  great  hills  and  trees, 

And  streams  and  clouds  and  suns  and  birds  and  bees, 

And  throbbed  with  neighbor-loves  in  lovino-  these.” 

1  Natural  Law  in  the  Spiritual  World,  pp.  53-57. 

2  See,  for  example,  Hegel,  Philosophie  der  Religion,  vol.  i.  pp.  17,  26. 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  NATURE. 


291 


On  the  other  hand,  he  finds  himself  no  stranger  in  the  realm 
of  the  spiritual  and  the  supernatural;  there  also  he  is  “at  home” 
with  God  and  all  that  is  spiritual  and  supernatural,  for  he  is  a 
child  of  God  the  father  of  spirits,  and  is  himself  in  his  inmost 
being  spiritual  and  supernatural.  As  spirit  he  feels  his  spirit¬ 
ual  environment.  And  the  fact  that  man  thus  finds  himself  at 
home  with  God  and  with  spiritual  realities  is  a  decisive  evidence 
of  the  existence  of  God  and  his  communication  with  man,  and  of 
the  reality  of  the  spiritual  realm. 

Nature,  therefore,  is  not  in  antagonism  to  spirit.  It  is  itself  the 
manifestation  of  God,  the  expression  of  his  archetypal  thought, 
the  sphere  in  which  he  is  continuously  active,  revealing  himself 
so  far  as  he  can  be  revealed  in  physical  forces  and  their  inter¬ 
action.  It  throbs  all  through  with  spiritual  energies  more  subtile 
and  more  mighty  than  the  currents  of  electricity  and  magnetism 
or  the  vibration  of  the  all-pervading  ether  flashing  with  light 
and  heat.  With  all  its  vastness  and  sublimity  it  is  but  the 
ground,  the  place,  the  sphere  for  what  is  greater,  for  the  rise  and 
development  of  the  spiritual  system.  It  is  made  for  the  abode 
and  the  sphere  of  action  of  persons,  rational  and  free,  in  the 
image  of  God,  constituting  a  rational  and  spiritual  system  in 
which  through  endless  time  and  space  God  realizes  progressively 
the  purpose  of  his  wisdom  in  acts  of  love.  So  man  finds  in  na¬ 
ture  the  resources  for  the  accomplishment  of  his  purposes,  the 
material,  the  instruments  and  the  forces  which  he  lays  hold  of 
and  directs  and  uses  for  his  own  ends  ;  in  his  acquisition  of  the 
resources  of  nature  he  is  himself  disciplined  and  developed  and 
so  revealed  to  himself  in  his  real  capacities  and  powers  ;  and  in 
his  own  development  he  cultivates,  civilizes  and  develops  the 
earth  itself,  which  advances  step  by  step  with  him  in  his  prog¬ 
ress.  The  physical  world,  therefore,  presents  no  antagonism  to 
the  spiritual,  but  is  a  sphere  for  life  and  action,  fitted  for  render¬ 
ing  service  to  God,  for  the  spiritual  work  and  culture  of  man, 
and  for  the  establishment  and  growth  of  God’s  kingdom  of 
righteousness  and  good-will,  of  peace  and  blessedness. 

And  around  all  the  universe,  physical  and  spiritual,  rolls  the 
great  ocean  of  the  infinite,  mysterious  and  incomprehensible. 
This  also  verifies  the  belief  in  God  ;  for  if  this  were  not  so  God 
would  not  be  infinite.  Yet  in  the  evolution  of  the  universe  what 
he  is  continually  comes  more  and  more  to  light.  As  in  the  be¬ 
ginning  the  islands  and  the  continents  at  the  word  of  God  were 
heaved  up  slowly  from  beneath  the  all-pervading  waters,  and 


292 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


the  waters  receded  as  the  rising  land  enlarged,  so  in  the  evolu¬ 
tion  of  the  universe  God  is  continually  emerging  from  the  dark¬ 
ness  and  vastness  of  the  infinite,  and  the  area  of  the  knowledge 
of  God  within  which  men  may  live  on  solid  and  fruitful  ground 
and  happily  serve  him,  is  enlarging  ;  yet  for  that  very  reason 
the  boundless  ocean  of  his  infinitude  greatens  to  the  view  along 
the  lengthening  shore  as  the  waters  give  place  to  the  rising  and 
enlarging  land. 

Thus  the  whole  universe,  natural  and  spiritual,  known  specu¬ 
latively  or  practically,  attests  and  verifies  through  all  ages  the 
reality  of  the  existence  of  God,  certissima  scientia  et  clamante 
conscientia.1 

VI.  The  inference. — In  the  five  lines  of  investigation 
which  have  been  indicated  we  find,  in  facts  and  ktws  scientifically 
established,  evidence  of  the  presence  and  direction  of  reason  in 
the  constitution  and  course  of  nature.  This  constitutes  the  verifi¬ 
cation  of  the  tlieistic  hypothesis  that  the  cosmos  is  grounded  in 
reason,  and  that  the  absolute  Power  manifested  in  it  is  a  rational 
power,  the  universal  Reason  energizing,  the  personal  God. 

The  verification  is  complete  if  no  other  hypothesis  is  found 
which  as  well  accords  with  the  known  facts  and  laws  and  ac¬ 
counts  for  them. 

Physical  science  forces  on  the  attention  the  problem  of  find¬ 
ing  a  theory  of  the  universe,  but  properly  declines  to  attempt 
its  solution  as  not  being  within  its  sphere.  As  it  pushes  onward 
the  investigation  of  nature's  forces  attracting  and  repelling,  of 
its  elemental  constitution,  its  ethers  and  their  vibrations,  its  pro¬ 
gressive  evolution,  it  finds  itself  involved  in  insuperable  difficul¬ 
ties  and  contradictions.  Thus  it  finds  that  the  ultimate  explana¬ 
tion  of  the  physical  system  must  come  from  beyond  the  system 
and  from  beyond  all  which  empirical  science  can  discover.  So 
Lord  Rayleigh,  President  of  the  British  Association,  in  his  open¬ 
ing  address  at  the  meeting  in  Montreal  in  1884,  said  of  “  the 
scientific  worker :  ”  “  In  his  heart  he  knows  that  underneath  the 
theories  that  he  constructs  there  lie  contradictions  which  he  can¬ 
not  reconcile.  The  highest  mysteries  of  being,  if  penetrable  at 
all  by  human  intellect,  require  other  weapons  than  those  of  cal¬ 
culation  and  experiment.” 

Passing  from  empirical  to  philosophical  and  theological  sci¬ 
ence,  it  has  already  been  shown  that  positivism,  den}7ing  all 
knowledge  of  beings  and  forces,  refuses  to  entertain  the  prob- 
1  Augustine,  —  De  Trinitate,  bk.  xiii.  chap.  i.  3. 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  NATURE. 


293 


lem  of  finding  an  explanation  of  the  universe,  that  agnosticism 
is  inconsistent  with  itself,  and  that  pantheistic  and  materialistic 
monism  each  fails  to  accord  with  the  facts  and  to  account  for 
them,  and  falls  into  insuperable  difficulties  and  contradictions. 
And  every  hypothesis,  which  denies  that  the  cosmos  is  grounded 
in  reason  and  manifests  rational  direction  in  its  facts  and  laws, 
fails.  It  explains  phenomena  only  by  some  physical  antecedent 
equally  needing  explanation ;  as  if  one  should  account  for  the 
music  of  a  piano  as  caused  by  the  keys,  with  no  recognition  of 
the  composer  or  the  pianist.  The  deduction  from  such  an  hy¬ 
pothesis  would  be  that  nature  would  disclose  no  rational  direc¬ 
tion  and  no  rational  beings ;  and  the  deduction  would  be  contra¬ 
dicted  by  the  observed  facts  at  every  point. 

Id  the  theistic  hypothesis,  that  the  universe  is  grounded  in 
personal  Reason  and  manifests  it  directing  and  energizing,  and 
in  this  alone,  the  contradictions  disappear  and  the  universe  is 
accounted  for  in  its  rational  cause,  in  its  existence  in  the  unity 
of  a  rational  system,  and  in  its  progressive  realization  of  rational 
ideals  and  its  existence  for  worthy  rational  ends. 

Nature  itself  through  all  its  changes  reveals  laws  which  never 
change.  If  the  universe  was  once  nebulous  matter,  yet  through 
all  the  changes  during  uncounted  ages  until  now  its  laws  have 
been  unchanged.  The  laws  of  gravitation,  of  mechanics,  of 
light,  heat  and  electricity,  of  chemical  affinity,  all  determined 
with  mathematical  exactness,  have  been  persistently  the  same. 
Thus  nature  gives  us  a  symbol  of  God  immanent  in  nature 
through  all  changes ;  and  more  than  a  symbol ;  for  nature,  in  its 
unchanging  principles,  laws  and  types,  expresses  the  unchanging 
thought  of  God.  And  as  nature  reveals  God,  so  God  reveals 
nature ;  for  we  know  the  real  significance  of  nature,  only  as  we 
know  the  infinite  in  the  finite,  the  ideal  in  the  physical,  the 
God  in  nature.  As  the  diamond  reveals  the  light  that  contin¬ 
uously  falls  on  it,  so  the  light  reveals  the  diamond.  The  dia¬ 
mond  would  be  little  esteemed  if  estimated  only  by  what  is 
known  of  it  in  the  darkness.  God  is  the  light  of  the  world,  and 
he  knows  little  of  the  real  significance  of  nature  who  knows  it 
only  as  nature  and  without  God.  So  Jean  Paul  Richter  strik¬ 
ingly  describes  the  immanence  of  God  unchangeable  in  the  ever- 
changing  flux  of  nature :  “  The  Reason  mirrors  itself  in  the 
world-stream,  like  the  sunlight  in  the  water-fall ;  ”  the  sunshine 
unchanging  in  the  stream,  but  the  stream  ever  flowing.  Thus 
even  in  our  scientific  investigations  of  nature  we  are  confronted 


294 


THE  SELF-RE YELATION  OF  GOD. 


everywhere  with  God  :  “  Thou  hast  beset  me  behind  and  before, 
and  laid  thine  hand  upon  me.  Whither  shall  I  go  from  thy 
Spirit,  or  whither  shall  I  flee  from  thy  presence?  ” 

VII.  Objections  against  the  evidence.  —  The  objec¬ 
tions  are  of  two  classes :  those  against  the  evidence ;  and  those 
against  the  legitimacy  of  the  inference  from  it. 

The  principal  objections  against  the  evidence  may  be  grouped 
under  three  heads. 

Some  objections  arise  from  isolating  a  single  fact  adduced  in 
the  evidence  and  insisting  that  it  alone  does  not  prove  a  direct¬ 
ing  intelligence  in  nature.  Theists  by  insisting  on  isolated  and 
even  trivial  instances  have  sometimes  given  occasion  for  such 
objections.  The  whole  force  of  these  arises  from  considering  a 
single  fact,  and  that  perhaps  a  trivial  one,  in  isolation,  as*if  it 
included  the  whole  evidence.  But  the  evidence  is  not  in  single 
facts,  but  in  processes,  and  in  combinations  of  facts,  and  especially 
in  the  unity  of  innumerable  processes  and  combinations  in  nature 
as  a  whole.  One  may  laugh  at  the  argument  that  we  see  the 
goodness  of  God  in  the  adaptation  of  the  bark  of  cork-trees  to  be 
made  into  stopples,  and  of  eggs  to  be  made  into  omelets.  But 
the  fact  that  the  world  as  a  whole  is  adjusted  to  man  as  a  fit 
habitation,  yielding  to  his  skill  and  industry  food,  clothing  and 
shelter,  and  all  manner  of  material,  instruments  and  agencies  for 
the  accomplishment  of  his  ends,  is  certainly  an  evidence  that  it 
is  constituted  by  a  directing  intelligence  for  a  reasonable  end. 
Even  when  a  single  object  is  adduced  in  evidence,  as  an  eye,  a 
lily  or  a  sparrow,  it  is  found  to  involve  the  concurrence  in  unity 
of  many  complicated  agencies  and  processes,  and  to  present  in 
the  evidence  the  consilience  of  many  lines  of  thought.  As  we 
extend  our  thought  to  larger  and  larger  wholes,  with  the  unity 
of  ever  increasing  complications,  the  evidence  of  intelligent  di¬ 
rection  becomes  irresistible  to  one  who  has  the  concrete  facts 
clear  before  his  mind.  And  when  we  contemplate  the  cosmos  as 
a  whole  in  the  unity  of  a  scientific  system,  orderly  and  uniform 
under  the  law  of  continuity,  evolving  through  ages  of  time  in 
progressively  realizing  a  plan,  and  subserving  successively  higher 
and  higher  ends  till  man  appears,  the  evidence  of  intellectual 
direction  is  as  complete  as  it  is  conceivable  the  evidence  of  any 
fact  not  immediately  perceived  can  be.  Goethe  says:  “The 
teachers  of  whom  I  speak  would  think  they  lost  their  God  if 
they  did  not  adore  him  who  gave  the  ox  horns  to  defend  him¬ 
self  with.  But  let  them  permit  me  to  venerate  him  who  is  so 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  NATURE. 


295 


great  in  the  magnificence  of  Ins  creation  as,  after  making  a 
thousand-fold  plants,  to  comprehend  them  all  in  one ;  and  after  a 
thousand-fold  animals,  to  make  that  one  who  comprehends  them 
all  —  man.  Farther,  they  venerate  him  who  gives  the  beast  his 
fodder  and  man  meat  and  drink  as  much  as  he  can  enjoy.  But  I 
worship  him  who  has  infused  into  the  world  such  a  power  of 
production  that,  if  only  the  millionth  part  of  it  should  pass  into 
life,  the  world  must  swarm  with  creatures  to  such  a  degree  that 
war,  pestilence,  fire  and  water  cannot  prevail  against  them. 
This  is  my  God.”  1 

Other  objections  to  the  evidence  are  founded  on  the  allegation 
that  the  very  objects  adduced  in  the  evidence  are  discovered  to 
be  imperfect. 

For  example,  Professor  Helmholtz  alleges  that  the  eye,  as  an 
optical  instrument,  has  defects,  several  of  which  he  specifies.  He 
speaks  of  it  as  more  defective  than  optical  instruments  made  by 
man.2 

The  first  reply  is  that  the  eye  is  superior  to  all  optical  instru¬ 
ments  made  by  man  in  the  fact  that  it  sees.  Without  an  eye 
applied  to  it  every  optical  instrument  in  the  world  is  useless.  Not 
one  of  them  can  see.  The  eye  was  made  to  see  and  adapted  to 
that  end.  Optical  instruments  are  made  for  the  eye  to  see 
through,  and  are  adapted  to  that  end.  If  the  eye  were  exactly 
like  the  most  perfect  optical  instrument  made  by  man,  it  would 
be  a  total  failure  for  all  the  purposes  of  an  eye. 

A  telescope  is  made  to  assist  the  eye  in  seeing  distant  objects; 
a  microscope  to  assist  it  in  seeing  minute  objects  close  at  hand. 
Each  is  unfit  for  the  purpose  of  the  other.  An  eye  is  made  to 
see  both  near  and  remote  objects,  as  the  purposes  of  life  may 
require.  In  this  also  it  is  superior  to  any  optical  instrument. 
The  objection  therefore  is  analogous  to  saying  that  a  razor  is 
inferior  to  an  axe  because  trees  cannot  be  felled  with  it. 

Further,  the  eye  is  a  living  organ  in  a  living  organism;  it 
must  be  delicately  sensitive  ;  it  must  conform  to  the  laws  of  the 
organism  and  is  affected  by  all  its  organic  action  ;  it  must  be 
adapted  to  all  these  organic  conditions  as  well  as  to  the  mechan¬ 
ical  action  of  light,  and  to  all  its  environment.  Professor  J.  P. 
Cooke  says  :  “The  capacity  of  self-adjustment,  preserving  always 
a  perfect  achromatism  and  freedom  from  spherical  aberration, 
has  never  been  reached  in  nearly  the  same  degree  by  art.”  8  An 

1  Eckermann,  Conversations  with  Goethe,  Trans,  pp.  370,  371. 

2  Popular  Lect.  on  Scientific  Subjects,  pp.  212-228. 

3  Religion  and  Chemistry,  p.  231. 


296 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


organ  with  all  these  varied  adjustments  and  meeting  successfully 
all  these  conditions  is  a  far  more  admirable  instrument  than  a 
telescope  or  microscope.  And  Professor  Helmholtz  himself  says 
that  the  defects  of  the  eye  are  counteracted ;  that  “  the  adapta¬ 
tion  of  the  eye  to  its  function  is  most  complete,  and  is  seen  in 
the  very  limits  given  to  its  defects and  that  u  every  useless 
refinement  would  have  rendered  it  more  delicate  and  slower  in 
its  use”  as  an  eye.  It  appears  therefore  that  the  defects  in  the 
eye,  which  have  been  so  much  talked  of,  do  after  all  enhance  the 
evidence  of  a  directing  intelligence  in  its  structure.  It  has  been 
only  by  long  study  that  the  defects  in  the  primitive  optical  in¬ 
struments  have  been  step  by  step  corrected.  Now  we  find  that 
in  the  eye  nature  has  already  made  these  corrections.  It  evinces 
not  only  the  highest  skill  directing  its  construction,  but  also 
adapting  it  to  the  uses  of  a  living  organism  and  counteracting 
the  influence  of  defects  found  by  all  opticians  to  be  inseparable 
from  the  construction  of  optical  instruments. 

Other  examples  of  objections  of  this  kind  are  those  founded  on 
the  alleged  waste  of  power  and  resources  in  effecting  a  result  in 
nature ;  as  in  the  multitude  of  germs  which  perish  in  comparison 
with  the  number  which  grow  into  mature  organisms.  This,  it  is 
.said,  is  “  like  shooting  a  million  loaded  guns  in  a  field  to  kill  one 
hare,”  or  “  spilling  a  gallon  of  wine  in  filling  one  wine-glass.” 
But  in  view  of  all  the  conditions  and  processes  of  the  universe  it 
is  not  known  that  this  prodigality  involves  waste.  And  it  indi¬ 
cates  the  affluence  of  resources,  the  inexhaustible  prolificness  of 
the  power  energizing  in  nature  and  its  fixed  purpose  to  preserve 
and  perpetuate  the  species  against  all  adverse  agencies. 

To  all  objections  like  these,  founded  on  a  supposed  imperfec¬ 
tion  in  a  product  or  process  of  nature,  there  is  an  additional  an¬ 
swer.  They  assume  that  the  perfection  of  a  product  or  arrange¬ 
ment  is  necessary  in  order  to  prove  intelligent  direction.  This  is 
erroneous.  The  pictures  drawn  by  the  cave  men  on  tusks  of 
ivory  are  far  from  perfect,  the  implements  of  the  earlier  stone- 
age  are  of  the  rudest  kind  ;  yet  all  scientists  recognize  in  them 
indisputable  evidence  of  the  workmanship  of  rational  beings. 
And  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  our  present  argument  is  not 
intended  to  establish  the  existence  of  the  absolute  Being  and  his 
manifestation  of  his  power  in  nature,  for  these  are  already  known  ; 
nor  to  complete  the  proof  of  his  perfection,  for  in  order  to  do  this 
it  must  be  supplemented  by  other  evidence.  It  is  simply  evi- 
dence  that  the  power  manifested  in  nature  is  guided  by  intelli* 
gence. 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  NATURE.  297 

Further  replies  equally  pertinent  to  these  objections  will  be 
found  in  the  answers  to  those  of  the  next  group. 

Objections  of  the  third  group  assert  that  the  theist  does  not 
take  note  of  all  the  facts  bearing  on  the  question  ;  they  allege  the 
existence  of  evil  in  various  forms  as  positive  evidence  against 
theism. 

These  facts  are  of  two  classes. 

The  first  is  moral  evil,  that  is,  sin.  Sin,  as  a  fact,  is  fully  ac¬ 
counted  for  by  the  existence  of  finite  free  agents.  Through  their 
freedom  they  determine  by  their  own  choice  whether  to  do  right 
or  wrong;  and  through  their  finiteness  they  are  liable  to  err. 
Since  there  can  be  no  moral  system  without  finite  free  agents, 
there  can  be  no  moral  system  without  the  possibility  of  sin.  The 
objection  therefore  is  not  ultimately  against  the  fact  that  some 
beings  sin,  but  against  the  possibility  of  sin  ;  therefore  against 
the  existence  of  any  moral  system.  It  demands  a  system  of  finite 
free  agents  in  which  sin  is  impossible.  But  this  is  demanding  an 
absurdity.  To  this  it  is  replied  by  the  objector  that  the  answer 
implies  that  sin  is  necessary  in  the  constitution  of  things.  But 
this  rejoinder  is  founded  on  the  failure  of  the  objector  to  discrim¬ 
inate  between  the  fact  of  sin  and  its  possibility.  The  fact  of  sin 
is  not  necessary  in  the  constitution  of  things,  because  all  moral 
agents  are  free  to  do  right ;  if  they  do  wrong  it  is  of  their  own 
free  choice  and  not  of  any  necessity.  But  the  possibility  of  do¬ 
ing  wrong  is  inherent  in  the  constitution  of  any  moral  system. 
If  then  any  one  freely  chooses  the  wrong,  this  does  not  impeach 
the  wisdom  of  constituting  a  moral  system ;  it  only  shows  that 
some  one  in  the  system  has  in  his  freedom  made  an  unwise  choice. 
The  reasons  which  justify  and  demand  the  existence  of  the  moral 
system  remain  unchanged.  This  is  as  far  as  we  can  here  proceed 
in  the  discussion  of  this  side  of  the  objection.  The  full  consider¬ 
ation  of  these  reasons  is  possible  only  when  we  are  prepared  for 
an  examination  of  the  moral  system  in  its  relation  to  the  gov¬ 
ernment  of  God,  and  in  the  light  of  his  revelation  of  himself  in 
Christ. 

The  second  class  of  facts  adduced  by  the  objector  are  those  of 
physical  evil  in  various  forms.  This  includes  pain  and  suffering, 
and  all  agencies  and  arrangements,  all  imperfections  and  mal-ad- 
justments  which  are  adapted  to  cause  them. 

In  respect  to  these  objections  from  the  existence  of  evil  in  both 
kinds  it  must  be  noted  in  the  outset  that  the  belief  in  the  suprem¬ 
acy  of  reason  and  of  the  moral  law  does  not  originate  in  any 


298 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


empirical  estimate  of  the  comparative  amount  of  happiness  and 
misery  in  the  world.  This  belief  wells  up  spontaneously  from 
the  rational  constitution  of  man.  In  studying  the  evidence  of 
the  existence  of  God  we  do  not  begin  with  stripping  ourselves  of 
our  consciousness  of  moral  obligation,  of  the  distinction  between 
right  and  wrong,  and  of  the  supreme  authority  of  moral  law.1 
Therefore  if  the  theist  discovers  facts  which  he  cannot  explain 
in  harmony  with  the  reign  of  righteousness,  he  is  justified  in  his 
faith  that  the  moral  ordering  of  the  universe  is  supreme  and  that 
these  facts,  when  all  is  known,  will  be  found  explicable  in  har¬ 
mony  with  it.  In  scientific  investigation  it  is  assumed  that  every 
fact  is  capable  of  being  apprehended  in  science,  though  at  present 
its  scientific  relations  are  not  discovered.  Just  so  and  on  the 
ground  of  the  same  confidence  in  the  supremacy  and  universality 
of  reason,  we  are  justified  in  assuming  that  every  fact  can  be  ex¬ 
plained  in  harmony  with  the  universality  and  supremacy  of  the 
practical  Reason  in  its  moral  ordering  of  the  world.  The  atheist 
claims  that  he  has  the  same  right  to  assume  that  the  evidences  of 
benevolent  design  and  righteous  rule  in  the  world  are  explicable 
in  harmony  with  a  supreme  malevolence  and  injustice,  and  so  to 
rest  in  faith  in  the  supremacy  of  these  in  face  of  facts  which  he 
cannot  explain  in  harmony  with  them.  But  he  has  this  right 
only  if  the  reason  of  man  and  its  necessary  principles  are  un¬ 
trustworthy,  if  its  moral  intuitions  are  illusions  and  there  is  no 
essential  distinction  between  right  and  wrong. 

Before  considering  the  objection  from  physical  evil  it  may  be 
premised  that  the  physical  system  being  impersonal  and  not  sub¬ 
ject  to  moral  law  cannot  reasonably  be  expected  to  furnish  com¬ 
plete  evidence  of  the  righteousness  and  benevolence  of  the  abso¬ 
lute  Being  manifested  in  it.  To  answer  this  objection  fully  we 
must  have  also  the  knowledge  of  God  obtained  from  his  revela¬ 
tion  of  himself  in  the  constitution  and  history  of  man,  and  espe¬ 
cially  from  his  revelation  in  Christ. 

It  must  also  be  premised  that  theism  alone  even  attempts  to 
answer  this  objection.  Whether  theism  is  true  or  not,  the  im¬ 
perfection  and  suffering  designated  as  physical  evil  remain  facts. 
They  must  either  be  explained  as  consistent  with  the  directing 
agency  of  reason  or  it  must  be  admitted  that  the  universe  is  not 
a  reasonable  system.  The  objection  urges  these  facts  to  prove 
that  the  universe  is  not  reasonable.  But  this  is  an  objection 
against  all  science  as  really  as  against  theism  ;  for  all  science  rests 
1  Philosophical  Basis  of  Theism,  chap.  ix.  pp.  185-226. 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  NATURE. 


299 


on  the  assumption  that  the  universe  is  a  reasonable  system  and 
that  everything  in  it  is  essentially  intelligible  and  explicable  to 
reason.  And  whoever  is  intellectually  troubled  and  perplexed 
by  the  existence  of  physical  evil  as  something  demanding  ex¬ 
planation,  therein  reveals  his  own  consciousness  that  the  universe 
must  be  a  reasonable  system.  And  the  very  existence  of  a  rea¬ 
sonable  system  implies  a  rational  plan  and  therein  also  implies  a 
rational  end. 

As  a  reasonable  explanation  of  imperfection  and  suffering 
theism  presents  three  principal  lines  of  thought  in  answer  to  the 
objection. 

The  first  answer  is,  that  imperfection,  privation  and  liability 
to  evil  are  involved  in  finiteness. 

The  second  answer  is,  that  physical  evil  is  subservient  to  the 
education  and  development  of  man  and  thus  to  the  ends  of  the 
higher  spiritual  system. 

The  third  answer  is  that,  notwithstanding  physical  evil,  the 
physical  system  does  reveal  God’s  benevolent  disposition  to  pro¬ 
mote  happiness. 

First  Answer  :  Imperfection,  privation  and  liability  to  evil  are 
involved  in  the  limitations  of  finite  beings.  And  this  line  of 
thought  is  applicable  both  to  physical  and  moral  evil. 

In  carrying  out  this  line  of  thought,  theism  rests  on  two  prin¬ 
ciples.  One  is  this  :  The  universe  is  the  expression  in  the  finite 
of  the  archetypal  thought  or  ideal  of  the  absolute  Reason,  which 
is  the  ultimate  ground  of  its  existence ;  the  infinite  can  never  be 
fully  expressed  in  the  finite  ;  therefore  the  expression  of  the  in¬ 
finite  in  the  universe  must  be  progressive,  and  at  every  point  of 
time  or  bound  of  space  it  must  be  incomplete  and  thus  imperfect. 
The  other  is  this  :  the  progressive  expression  or  realization  of  the 
archetypal  ideal  is  in  the  finite  universe  and  through  the  action 
of  its  finite  agencies. 

Physical  science  declares  the  same.  The  universe  is  in  contin¬ 
uous  evolution  from  lower  to  higher  grades  of  being  ;  the  evolu¬ 
tion  goes  on  in  the  finite  through  the  interaction  of  finite  agen¬ 
cies  ;  beings  of  a  higher  grade  never  appear  until  through  this 
interaction  the  stuff  existing  in  a  lower  grade  has  been  prepared 
for  them  ;  and  the  universe  is  found  to  be  the  progressive  expres¬ 
sion  and  realization  of  archetypal  thought,  because  the  human 
mind  applying  itself  to  it  in  observation  and  thought  takes  from 
it  into  itself  its  intellectual  equivalent,  as  an  imprint  is  taken 
from  type ;  and  the  imprint  is  found  to  be  science. 


300 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


The  objection  before  us  contradicts  in  these  respects  both  phys¬ 
ical  science  and  theism.  It  assumes  that  the  universe  is  a  com¬ 
pleted  product  finished  in  all  its  parts,  and  that  therefore  every¬ 
thing  in  it  must  be  found  to  be  perfect.  It  also  assumes  that  the 
universe  is  made  what  it  is  by  an  arbitrary  fiat  of  almighty  will, 
which  at  every  moment  effects  whatever  its  caprice  decrees  in  en¬ 
tire  disconnection  from  all  existing  finite  things  and  agencies  and 
from  the  existing  conditions,  powers  and  capacities  of  the  universe. 

Theism  and  physical  science  concur  in  setting  aside  these  as¬ 
sumptions,  and  thus  entirely  take  away  the  foundation  on  which 
the  objection  rests. 

We  look  now  at  the  first  of  these  two  principles.  It  is  evident 
that  if  God  expresses  his  archetypal  thought  in  the  universe,  it 
must  be  expressed  in  the  finite.  Hence  its  expression  as  actually 
made  in  the  universe  must  at  every  point  of  time  and  bound  of 
space  be  incomplete  and  imperfect.  The  archetypal  plan  or  ideal 
eternal  in  the  absolute  Reason  is  perfect ;  its  realization  in  the 
finite  must  be  progressive  ;  the  universe  in  which  it  is  progres¬ 
sively  realized  can  never  be  finished  and  complete.  The  manifes¬ 
tation  of  the  infinite  in  it  must  go  on  progressively  forever.  Only 
the  eternal  word,  which  God  sees  in  himself  as  the  archetype  of 
the  universe,  is  the  complete  and  perfect  word  of  God.  The 
word  of  God  is  uttered  in  the  universe ;  but  the  utterance  al¬ 
ways  falls  short  of  the  infinite  fulness  of  meaning  in  the  word  to 
be  uttered.  In  the  universe  God  is  always  uttering  his  incom¬ 
municable  name.  So  Dante  heard  in  Paradise  :  — 

“  He  who  a  compass  turned 
On  the  world’s  outer  verge,  and  who  within  it 
Devised  so  much  occult  and  manifest, 

Could  not  the  impress  of  his  power  so  make 
On  all  the  universe,  as  that  his  Word 
Should  not  remain  in  infinite  excess. 

And  this  makes  certain  that  the  first  proud  being, 

Who  was  the  paragon  of  every  creature, 

By  not  awaiting  ligrht  fell  immature. 

And  hence  appears  it,  that  each  minor  nature 
Is  scant  receptacle  unto  that  good 
Which  has  no  end,  and  by  itself  is  measured. 

In  consequence  our  vision,  which  perforce 
Must  be  some  ray  of  that  intelligence 
With  which  all  things  whatever  are  replete, 

Cannot  in  its  own  nature  be  so  potent, 

That  it  shall  not  its  origin  discern 
Far  beyond  that  which  is  apparent  to  it. 

Therefore  into  the  justice  sempiternal 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  NATURE. 


301 


The  power  of  vision  that  your  world  receives, 

As  eye  into  the  ocean  penetrates  ; 

Which,  though  it  sees  the  bottom  near  the  shore, 

Upon  the  deep  perceives  it  not;  and  yet 
’T  is  there,  but  it  is  hidden  by  the  depth.”  1 

We  look  next  at  the  second  of  the  two  principles.  When  the 
universe  has  come  into  existence,  it  has  a  reality  and  efficiency 
of  its  own  which  must  determine  the  effects  which  it  is  possible 
to  bring  to  pass  in  it  or  through  its  agencies.  If  this  were  not 
so,  God  by  his  action  would  break  in  on  the  fixed  course  of  na¬ 
ture  ;  or  rather  there  would  be  no  fixed  course  of  nature  ;  God’s 
action  would  be  entirely  above  it  and  independent  of  it,  and  the 
universe  would  be  a  mere  illusion,  seeming  to  be  and  act  without 
really  being  and  acting.  But  God’s  action  is  not  above  the  uni¬ 
verse  but  in  it  and  upon  it,  not  irruptive  into  it  but  through  its 
beings  and  powers,  not  a  miracle-working  but  a  continuous  action 
progressively  developing  the  higher  from  the  lower.  The  effect 
produced  by  a  power  however  great  in  a  finite  thing  must  be 
commensurate  with  the  capacity  of  the  thing.  No  power  can 
put  a  gallon  of  water  into  a  pint-measure,  nor  move  a  stone  by 
argument  or  persuasion,  nor  deprive  a  free  will  of  its  freedom  by 
chains  and  fetters.  And  the  effect  produced  by  any  power 
through  a  finite  agent  must  be  commensurate  with  the  power  of 
the  agent.  No  power  can  produce  an  effect  by  a  moving  body 
greater  than  is  commensurate  with  its  mass  and  velocity. 

These  two  principles  are  a  basis  for  the  explanation  of  phys¬ 
ical  imperfection  and  suffering  consistently  with  the  supremacy 
of  reason  in  the  universe. 

The  limitation  of  a  finite  being  is  imperfection,  negatively  as 
the  absence  of  good,  positively  as  liability  to  evil.  A  mouse  is 
negatively  imperfect  in  that,  while  it  has  a  certain  size,  swiftness, 
force  and  other  qualities  which  are  good,  it  lacks  all  higher  de¬ 
grees  of  those  qualities.  A  stone  lacks  life  ;  a  plant  lacks  feel¬ 
ing  ;  a  brute  lacks  reason.  A  finite  being  is  positively  imperfect 
because  it  is  liable  to  be  overcome  by  the  stronger.  Through  all 
nature  the  law  is  that  a  weaker  force  must  give  way  before  the 
stronger.  Hence  in  all  vegetable  and  animal  life  are  the  struggle 
for  existence  and  the  survival  of  the  fittest.  So  all  beings  on 
earth  are  subject  to  overpowering  cosmic  agencies,  to  winter’s 
cold  and  summer’s  heat,  to  lightning,  tornadoes  and  earthquakes, 
to  the  miasma  of  pestilence,  which  no  human  power  can  resist 
and  no  human  skill  escape. 

1  Paradiso,  Canto  xix.  40—63,  Longfellow’s  Translation. 


302 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


This  imperfection,  negative  and  positive,  is  sometimes  called 
metaphysical  imperfection  to  distinguish  it  from  moral.  Finite¬ 
ness  does  not  necessarily  involve  pain  and  suffering.  These  are 
occasional  and  exceptional.  But  the  liability  to  pain  is  insepa¬ 
rable  from  a  sentient  organization  and  is  an  imperfection.  And 
as  to  the  absence  of  good,  in  common  speech  we  quite  as  often 
characterize  a  being  by  its  deficiency  of  good  as  by  its  possession 
of  it.  A  babe  is  called  weak.  Yet  it  has  strength.  A  boy  is 
strong  in  comparison  with  the  babe,  but  weak  in  comparison  with 
a  man  ;  and  the  man  is  weak  in  comparison  with  an  elephant, 
the  elephant  in  comparison  with  a  steam-engine  and  so  on  indefi¬ 
nitely.  Of  every  finite  being  it  is  true  that  its  strength  is  weak¬ 
ness. 

This  imperfection  is  inseparable  from  finiteness.  In  mechanics 
what  is  gained  in  power  is  lost  in  time.  Light,  if  obstructed, 
must  cast  a  shadow,  and  if  absent  there  must  be  darkness.  Nerves 
sentient  to  pleasure  must  be  sentient  to  pain.  Organic  life  must 
be  liable  to  death.  Where  one  body  is  another  cannot  be.  If  it 
is  asked  why  the  constitution  of  things  and  the  course  and  laws 
of  nature  might  not  be  changed,  the  answer  is  that,  however 
changed,  the  universe  and  all  in  it  must  still  be  finite  and  there¬ 
fore  incomplete  and  imperfect. 

The  greater  are  the  variety  and  range  of  the  capacity  for  good, 
the  greater  the  variety  and  range  of  the  liability  to  evil.  A  stone 
cannot  die  ;  a  plant  cannot  suffer ;  a  brute  cannot  sin. 

It  is  objected  that  God  created  the  material  of  the  universe 
and  therefore  is  himself  responsible  for  its  refractoriness  under 
his  working.  This  objection  goes  back  to  the  error  that  the  ulti¬ 
mate  ground  of  the  universe  is  an  almighty  and  capricious  will. 
It  is  of  no  force  against  the  theistic  doctrine  that  the  universe  is 
grounded  in  absolute  Reason,  and  no  power,  not  even  almighti- 
ness,  can  either  create  or  annul  any  of  its  eternal  principles  or 
give  reality  to  that  which  contradicts  them  and  is  absurd.  The 
distinction  between  the  absolute  and  the  conditioned,  the  infinite 
and  the  finite,  rests  on  a  primitive  and  constituent  principle  of 
reason,  which  no  power  of  will  can  create  or  annul.  God  there¬ 
fore  did  not  create  it.  He  has  simply  created  finite  beings  in 
accordance  with  that  eternal  distinction.  The  impossibility  oi 
causing  an  effect,  in  a  finite  being  or  through  a  finite  agency, 
greater  than  its  capacity  is  not  created  by  any  fiat  of  God’s  will. 

The  objection  therefore  involves  the  absurdity  that  God  has  no 
right  to  create  a  finite  being ;  nor  any  being  except  an  absolute 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  NATURE. 


303 


or  unconditioned  being.  The  objection  is  against  the  finiteness 
of  the  creature,  not  against  any  particular  degree  of  limitation, 
whether  more  or  less.1 

It  follows  that  no  degree  of  physical  limitation  or  imperfection 
is  a  valid  objection  against  the  supremacy  of  reason  in  the  uni¬ 
verse  or  against  the  moral  perfection  of  God  ;  because  the  objec¬ 
tion  is  not  against  the  degree  of  limitation,  but  against  finiteness 
in  the  creature.  It  demands  that  every  creature  must  be  equal 
with  God. 

Hence  the  finiteness  of  a  creature,  whatever  its  limitation  may 
be,  is  no  just  ground  of  complaint  against  the  reasonableness  of 
the  creation  or  the  equity  of  God  in  creating.  If  a  star-fish  could 
complain  that  it  is  not  a  trout,  the  trout  might  as  well  complain 
that  it  is  not  a  horse,  the  horse  that  it  is  not  a  man,  the  man 
that  he  is  not  an  angel,  the  angel  that  he  is  not  a  thousand  times 
greater.  If  I  may  complain  that  I  live  but  seventy  years,  Me¬ 
thuselah  might  with  equal  propriety  complain  that  he  lived  but 
a  thousand  ;  and  when  told  that  I  am  immortal  I  might  as  well 
complain  that  I  was  not  brought  into  being  a  million  of  years 
before.  In  their  real  significance  these  all  are  forms  of  the  ab¬ 
surd  complaint  that  God  did  not  make  all  creatures  gods  by  one 
instantaneous  fiat  of  his  will.  And  this  limitation  of  God’s  reve¬ 
lation  of  himself  in  the  finite  is  not  an  imperfection  of  God,  but 
results  from  the  perfection  of  absolute  Reason  regulating  all  the 
divine  action. 

Here  we  see  the  significance  and  the  wisdom  of  the  Syrophce- 
nician  woman’s  saying  which  our  Lord  commended  :  “  Truth, 
Lord,  yet  the  dogs  eat  the  crumbs  which  fall  from  their  masters’ 
table.” 

It  is  unnecessary  to  delay  to  consider  in  detail  the  various  forms 
of  physical  imperfection  and  evil  which  have  been  urged  in  ob¬ 
jections  ;  such  as  the  existence  of  pain  and  suffering,  the  fact  of 
death,  the  existence  of  carnivorous  animals  with  weapons  of  as¬ 
sault  and  defense.  If  all  animals  were  immortal  the  number  en¬ 
joying  life  on  earth  would  be  immeasurably  reduced.  If  all  were 
graminivorous  there  would  be  a  diminution  of  the  number  which 
the  earth  could  support.  So  in  all  details,  the  removal  of  the 

1  Using  the  word  evil  in  the  sense  of  metaphysical  imperfection,  we  may  say 
with  Biedermann  that  “  it  belongs  essentially  to  the  finite  universe.  ...  A 
universe  without  it  is  no  longer  a  universe  distinct  from  God,  but  would  be 
nothing  but  the  universe  taken  back  again  into  the  absolute  being  of  God.’’  — 
Biedermann,  Dogmatik ,  §  723,  p.  650. 


304 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


limitation  at  one  point  would  make  necessary  an  equivalent  lim¬ 
itation  somewhere  else. 

The  same  principle  answers  all  objections  constituting  what 
Professor  Haeckel  has  called  dysteleology,  from  the  existence  in 
living  beings  of  rudimentary  organs,  simulating  organs  useful  in 
other  organisms,  but  useless,  so  far  as  known,  in  the  organism  in 
which  they  are  found  in  their  rudimentary  forms  ;  from  the  ex¬ 
istence  of  organs  wasting  away  from  disuse  ;  from  the  existence 
of  organs  not  only  useless  but  dangerous  to  the  organism  in  which 
they  exist ;  an  example  of  which  is  the  cul-de-sac  or  pocket  known 
as  the  vermiform  appendix  in  the  intestines  of  man.  As  it  has 
no  outlet,  a  hard  substance  slipping  in  may  cause  inflammation 
and  death.  To  this  class  of  objections  it  may  be  answered  that 
some  of  these  are  known  to  be  of  use  to  the  organism ;  in  respect 
to  others  there  is  evidence  establishing  more  or  less  probability 
that  they  are  of  use ;  at  least  one  writer,  for  example,  has  at¬ 
tempted  to  prove  that  the  vermiform  appendix  is  useful.1  If 
they  are  organs  wasting  by  disuse  under  new  conditions,  they 
were  useful  in  the  former  conditions  ;  and  if  under  changed  con¬ 
ditions.  they  are  no  longer  useful,  it  is  for  the  good  of  the  organ¬ 
ism  that  they  should  waste  away  ;  and  this  wasting  will  not  be 
effected  by  a  miraculous  fiat  of  God,  but  by  a  process  of  nature. 
It  may  be  added  that,  if  Darwinism  is  true,  organs  which  per¬ 
sistently  survive  must  be  useful  to  the  organism  ;  otherwise  their 
continued  existence  would  be  contrary  to  the  law  of  the  survival 
of  the  fittest.  It  may  further  be  replied  that  the  physico-theo- 
logical  argument  does  not  rest  exclusively  on  the  discovery  of 
final  causes ;  but  also  on  the  discovery  in  nature  of  rational  sig¬ 
nificance,  of  order  and  law,  of  ideals  of  perfection.  If,  further, 
we  consider  the  whole  system  of  things  progressively  realizing  an 
archetypal  plan  in  and  through  finite  beings  and  agencies,  then 
these  dysteleological  facts  may  be  mere  incidents  in  the  develop¬ 
ment  of  the  system  and  reveal  merely  the  necessary  limitations 
of  the  finite.  If  the  universe  is  to  develop  higher  and  higher 
orders  of  life  in  and  through  finite  agencies,  then  the  transition 
from  lower  to  higher  forms  must  be  expected  to  reveal  traces  of 
former  organs  and  functions  now  passing  into  disuse ;  and  this 
would  be  no  impeachment  of  the  reasonableness  and  wisdom  of 
the  system.  Otherwise  the  transition  must  be  made  by  a  miracle 
transcending  all  finite  agencies. 

The  same  principle  answers  all  objections  that  the  universe  is 

1  Paget,  Hunterian  Lectures. 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  NATURE. 


305 


imperfect  because  at  any  point  of  time  we  can  conceive  of  a  bet¬ 
ter  ;  that  the  evolution  is  not  farther  advanced  ;  that  cosmic  pro¬ 
cesses  are  so  slow. 

It  may  be  noted  in  passing  that  these  principles  are  also  appli¬ 
cable  to  questions  arising  in  the  study  of  Christianity.  The  type 
of  the  kingdom  of  God  on  earth  is  an  organic  growth  ;  first  the 
blade,  then  the  ear,  then  the  full  corn  in  the  ear.  It  has  succes¬ 
sive  dispensations,  each  lasting  for  ages.  Its  movement,  like  that 
of  the  cosmic  agencies,  is  slow.  We  ask  why  Christ  did  not  come 
earlier  and  why  Christianity  has  not  already  transformed  society 
into  the  kingdom  of  righteousness.  The  answer  is  that  God  is 
acting  on  and  in  finite  free  agents  and  through  their  limited  and 
imperfect  agency  ;  and  that  in  no  other  way  is  it  possible  to  set 
up  a  kingdom  of  God  and  to  renovate,  train  and  educate  sinful 
men  to  be  its  citizens.  Christianity  emphasizes  the  imperfection 
of  man’s  present  condition  ;  but  holds  forth  the  never  changing 
promise  that  in  the  progress  of  Christ’s  kingdom  the  future  shall 
be  better  than  the  past,  and  progressively  fulfils  it  from  age  to 
age,  and  from  dispensation  to  dispensation. 

All  right  reasoning  on  this  subject  must  recognize  the  funda¬ 
mental  fact  that  the  universe  is  not  governed  by  capricious  al- 
mightiness,  but  by  reason  illuminating  and  directing  the  almiglit- 
iness  which  always  acts  in  harmony  with  it.  The  universe  is  a 
system  constituted  under  principles  and  laws  of  reason  which  no 
power  can  annul ;  it  is  composed  of  innumerable  finite  beings 
that  interact  in  the  most  intricate  complications  ;  nothing  exists 
and  acts  of  or  for  itself  alone  ;  and  at  every  period  of  time  the 
universe  and  everything  in  it  are  the  complex  result  of  the  inter¬ 
action  of  these  beings  through  the  ages.  In  this  system  almighty 
power  regulated  by  reason  cannot  work  faster  nor  effect  results 
greater  than  are  commensurate  with  the  limits  or  finiteness  of 
the  system  and  ordered  under  its  laws.  A  power  regulated  by 
reason  acts  always  under  the  laws  of  reason.  A  locomotive  con¬ 
structed  and  guided  by  reason  does  not  put  forth  its  power  at 
random,  running  wild  and  terrific.  It  follows  with  regulated 
speed  the  lines  and  curves  of  the  rails  which  intelligence  has  laid 
down,  it  stops  at  stations  as  rational  guidance  demands  ;  and  so 
with  comparative  slowness  reaches  its  goal  and  accomplishes  its 
rational  design.  Or  if  stationary,  it  does  not  put  forth  the  full 
power  pent  up  in  it,  which  would  be  destructive  ;  but  guides  and 
attenuates  it  with  the  utmost  nicety  and  delicacy,  drawing  out  a 

wire  as  fine  as  a  hair,  cutting,  bending  and  inserting  the  teeth  of 

20 


306 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


a  card,  twisting  a  braid  or  a  fringe.  So  in  nature  almighty  power, 
acting  under  the  guidance  of  reason,  wields  the  worlds  and  moves 
them  with  precision  and  continuity  in  their  orbits,  and  also 
etches  the  flowerlike  tracery  of  the  frost,  models  the  delicate 
snow-flakes  in  varied  forms  of  beauty,  and  makes  the  nicest  ad¬ 
justments  of  vegetable  and  animal  organisms.  This  regulated  and 
restrained  and  skilful  action,  ordered  under  law  and  adapted  to 
the  limits  of  finite  things,  characterizes  all  God’s  action  in  the 
universe. 

“  The  way  of  ancient  ordinance,  though  it  winds, 

Is  yet  no  devious  way.  Straightforward  goes 
The  lightning’s  path,  and  straight  the  fearful  path 
Of  the  cannon-ball.  Direct  it  flies  and  rapid, 

Shattering  that  it  may  reach  and  shattering  what  it  reaches. 

“  My  son,  the  road  the  human  being  travels, 

That  on  which  BLESSING  comes  and  goes,  doth  follow 
The  river’s  course,  the  valley’s  playful  windings, 

Curves  round  the  corn-field  and  the  hill  of  vines, 

Honoring  the  holy  bounds  of  property  ; 

And  thus  secure,  though  late,  leads  to  its  ends.”  1 

And  suck  is  the  action  of  God  in  the  universe,  because  he  is  a 
rational  being ;  because  he  has  created  the  universe  in  accordance 
with  reason,  and  it  thus  has  a  rational  constitution  and  laws 
which  he  cannot  reasonably  change ;  because  all  creatures  are 
limited  in  finiteness  which  power  cannot  annul ;  and  because  in 
it  are  personality  and  freedom  with  rights  which  he  is  bound  in 
reason  to  respect.  This  gives  a  reasonable  ground  for  explaining 
imperfections  and  physical  evil  incidental  to  the  finiteness  of  the 
creature  and  to  the  progressive  development  of  the  system,  with¬ 
out  impeaching  the  perfection  of  its  plan  and  design.  The  ob¬ 
jection  has  force  only  against  the  conception  of  God  as  arbitrary 
and  capricious  Almigktiness  unregulated  by  reason. 

Second  Answer:  Physical  evil  is  subservient  to  the  education 
and  development  of  man  and  thus  to  the  ends  of  the  higher  spir¬ 
itual  system.  Theism,  recognizing  the  two  systems,  the  physical 
and  the  spiritual  or  moral,  finds  the  unity  of  the  two  in  one  all- 
comprehending  system  through  the  subordination  of  the  former 
to  the  latter. 

The  facts  included  under  the  name,  physical  evil,  remain  facts, 
whether  God  exists  or  not.  The  limitation  essential  in  finiteness 
sufficiently  accounts  for  them  as  facts  incidental  to  the  physical 

1  Scliiller,  Piccolomini,  act  i.  scene  iv. 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  NATURE. 


30T 


system.  But  if  we  ask  whether  any  end  is  accomplished  by  them 
which  makes  it  worth  while  that  this  system,  with  the  evil  inci¬ 
dental  in  it,  should  exist,  the  physical  system  itself  presents  no 
adequate  answer.  The  question  now  arises :  Is  there  any  higher 
system  to  which  the  physical  system  is  subservient ;  and  is  the 
existence  of  the  so-called  physical  evil  further  accounted  for  to 
the  reason  by  finding  that  it  accomplishes  worthy  ends  in  that 
higher  system  ?  This  subserviency  of  the  physical  to  the  spirit¬ 
ual  is  recognized  by  theism  as  a  fact. 

From  the  foregoing  considerations  it  is  already  evident  that,  if 
the  universe  exists  for  any  reasonable  end,  that  end  cannot  be 
the  immediate  gratification  of  appetite  and  desire  nor  the  mere 
quantity  of  enjoyment  empirically  measured  ;  but  must  be  an  end 
approved  by  reason  as  worthy  of  pursuit  by  rational  beings  and 
estimated  by  reason  as  having  worth  according  to  its  unchanging 
truths,  laws  and  ideals.  Also  the  physical  system  by  its  all-per¬ 
vading  impersonality  turns  the  thought  to  the  existence  of  a 
higher  system  presenting  higher  ends.  Of  this  higher  system 
man  has  knowledge  in  his  consciousness  of  himself  and  his  ac¬ 
quaintance  with  his  fellow-men  as  rational  persons.  A  being 
existing  solely  in  the  physical  system  could  have  no  knowledge 
of  a  higher.  But  man,  from  his  superior  position  as  a  rational 
moral  agent,  looks  on  nature  and  in  its  all-pervading  imperson¬ 
ality  sees  that  it  is  not  the  highest.  He  cannot  find  in  it  what 
satisfies  the  intellectual  demands  of  reason ;  for  it  cannot  show 
within  itself  either  the  cause,  the  law  or  the  end  of  its  existence. 
No  more  can  it  satisfy  the  moral  and  spiritual  demands  of  reason. 
Man  knows  himself  subject  to  the  law  of  love  and  so  belonging 
to  a  moral  system.  Nature  does  indeed  reveal  the  fact  that  it  is 
a  system  in  which  nothing  exists  for  itself  alone.  Thus  it  shows 
in  itself  an  analogy  to  the  law  of  love.  But  pervaded  with  the 
energy  of  physical  force,  everywhere  and  always  in  it  the  one  law 
is  that  the  stronger  must  prevail.  Thus  the  man  finds  himself 
in  contrast  with  the  physical  system,  and  in  that  very  contrast 
his  mind  turns  to  another  and  higher  system.  Unable  to  show 
within  itself  its  cause,  or  its  law,  or  the  end  for  which  it  exists, 
unable  to  satisfy  either  the  intellectual,  the  moral  or  the  spiritual 
demands  of  reason,  it  by  its  very  deficiency  points  unmistakably 
to  a  higher  system  on  which  it  depends  and  to  whose  ends  it  is 
subservient. 

It  is  also  a  fact  noticed  already  in  presenting  the  evidence,  that 
the  highest  order  of  beings  produced  on  the-  earth  is  man.  The 


308 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


evolution  has  gone  on  until  it  has  issued  on  this  planet  in  the  ap¬ 
pearance  of  a  being  who  knows  himself  to  be  a  rational,  free, 
moral  agent.  The  impersonal,  by  the  action  of  a  power  above  it, 
has  blossomed  into  the  rational.  The  rational  and  moral  system 
has  actually  appeared  and  men  know  themselves  as  existing  in  it. 
Since  this  is  the  highest  result  of  all  cosmic  agencies,  which  has 
thus  far  appeared  on  earth,  we  have  seen  that  it  is  reasonable  to 
infer  that  the  realization  of  this  is  the  end  to  which  these  agen¬ 
cies  in  the  lower  spheres  of  their  action  have  been  directed,  and 
its  progressive  development  the  end  to  which  they  are  still  sub¬ 
servient.  In  a  universe  of  inanimate  matter  there  would  be  no 
beings  who  could  know  God,  or  be  the  objects  of  his  love  and  the 
recipients  of  his  blessing.  There  would  be  no  end  for  which  such 
a  universe  could  be  rationally  conceived  to  exist.  The  theistic 
hypothesis  is,  that  God  created  rational  beings  to  be  the  recipi¬ 
ents  of  his  blessings  and  of  the  overflowing  fulness  of  his  love. 
This  commends  itself  to  the  reason  as  a  worthy  end  for  which  the 
physical  system  exists  and  to  which  it  is  always  subservient- 
Since  all  the  resources  and  energies  of  the  inorganic  world  are 
laid  under  contribution  to  the  ends  of  organic  life,  it  is  not  sur¬ 
prising  if  the  whole  physical  system  is  subordinated  to  the  uses 
and  ends  of  rational  and  moral  beings  and  of  the  system  to  which 
they  belong. 

It  is  also  found  to  be  a  fact  that  the  physical  system  is  fitted  to 
the  support,  education  and  development  of  rational  beings  and 
does  subserve  that  end. 

It  is  evident  from  the  observation  of  the  physical  system  that 
its  dominant  end  is  not  primarily  and  simply  the  avoidance  of 
pain  and  the  multiplication  of  pleasure.  It  is  designed  rather  to 
develop  men  to  realize  the  highest  possibilities  of  their  being. 
Parents  cannot  train  their  children  to  their  highest  power  and 
best  character  by  coaxing  them  with  sugar-plums.  And  God 
does  not  train  his  children  by  coaxing  them  with  sugar-plums. 
He  trains  them  to  develop  them,  to  make  them  strong,  wise  and 
good.  “Fortiter  ainat.”  Reason  approves  of  this  end;  for  it 
sits  in  judgment  on  pleasures  and  their  sources  and  approves  or 
condemns  them  as  worthy  or  unworthy  of  a  rational  being.  The 
good  which  God  aims  to  realize  for  men  is  the  perfection  of  their 
being,  their  harmony  with  the  constitution  and  laws  of  the  uni¬ 
verse,  and  such  joys  as  result  from  these.1 

The  physical  system  is  fitted  to  promote  this  training  and  edu* 

1  Phil.  Basis  of  Theism,  chap.  xi.  pp.  256-285. 


309 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  NATURE. 

cation.  It  is  the  sphere  in  which  rational  persons  live  and  do 
their  work ;  and  thus  in  strenuous  endeavor,  in  surmounting  dif¬ 
ficulties,  in  getting  knowledge  of  the  laws  and  possession  of  the 
powers  and  resources  of  nature,  in  resisting  temptation,  in  bear¬ 
ing  up  under  disappointment  and  sorrow,  in  self-control,  in  doing 
Christian  work  for  the  needy,  in  standing  for  truth  and  righteous¬ 
ness  and  God,  they  are  trained,  disciplined  and  developed  to  bring 
out  their  hidden  powers  and  all  in  them  that  is  divine.  It  is  the 
sphere  in  which  the  kingdom  of  God  is  growing  up,  first  the 
blade,  then  the  ear,  after  that  the  full  corn  in  the  ear. 

The  so-called  physical  evil  is  itself  a  means  of  discipline,  train¬ 
ing  and  education,  by  which  the  man’s  rational  and  spiritual  pow¬ 
ers  are  developed  and  strengthened,  and  he  is  advanced  toward 
his  perfection  as  an  individual  and  toward  the  highest  civilization 
of  society. 

The  facts  which  are  regarded  as  natural  evil  are  incentives 
which  call  the  energies  into  action.  Such  are  hunger,  thirst,  cold 
and  other  imperative  needs.  Their  law  is  imperative ;  work  or 
die. 

They  train  to  prudence  and  self-control.  But  for  pain  the 
hand  might  lie  in  the  fire  till  it  was  consumed,  and  the  man  be 
unconscious  of  it.  The  evil  is  not  the  pain,  but  it  is  the  pain¬ 
lessness  of  the  burning  flesh.  It  is  objected  that  pain  does  not 
give  warning  beforehand  of  the  approach  of  danger.  No  one  ex¬ 
periences  pain  when  he  breathes  malaria  or  takes  the  measles  or 
the  yellow  fever.  But  because  it  does  not  do  every  thing  is  no 
proof  that  it  does  not  do  any  thing.  It  warns  of  present  injury 
and  incites  to  prudence  and  self-control  thereafter. 

It  is  a  discipline  and  development  of  the  faculties.  Labor  in¬ 
volves  expenditure  of  energy  ;  it  is  fatiguing,  sometimes  painful. 
Yet  it  is  work  which  develops  and  strengthens  the  powers.  With¬ 
out  work  man  would  be  morally,  intellectually  and  physically 
good  for  nothing.  But  nature  imposes  on  us  the  law  that  we 
must  work  for  what  we  get.  She  offers  her  treasures  to  us  with 
one  hand  and  fights  us  off  with  the  other.  It  is  only  by  long  and 
hard  study  that  man  slowly  discovers  her  secrets,  and  only  by 
skill  and  labor  after  many  failures  that  he  gets  possession  of  her 
resources  and  the  means  of  controlling  her  powers  in  his  service. 
But  this  very  study  and  labor  develop  and  strengthen  him,  make 
him  many-sided,  capable  of  higher  attainments  and  joys,  and  pro¬ 
mote  his  civilization. 

Physical  evil  is  also  a  discipline  purifying  and  developing  moral 


310 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


and  spiritual  character.  The  natural  wants  of  the  family,  the 
helplessness  of  infancy,  the  presence  of  sickness  and  suffering 
draw  out  our  compassion  and  sympathy.  Disappointment  and 
loss,  adversity  and  sorrow  draw  out  our  moral  and  spiritual  aspi¬ 
rations  and  strengthen  our  moral  purpose. 

“  Who  never  ate  his  bread  in  sorrow, 

Who  never  spent  the  darksome  hours 
Weeping  and  watching  for  the  morrow, 

He  knows  you  not,  ye  higher  Powers.”  1 

It  follows  that  an  imperfect  world  is  adapted  to  the  training 
and  development  of  imperfect  beings,  and  a  progressive  world  to 
the  training  and  development  of  progressive  beings. 

It  must  be  added  that  a  considerable  part  of  the  suffering  of 
man  is  the  result  of  violation  of  the  moral  law.  Such  are  the 
bodily  infirmity  and  disease  caused  by  drunkenness,  gluttony  and 
licentiousness,  the  want  and  distress  consequent  on  improvidence 
and  idleness.  Evils  thus  caused  are  no  proofs  that  God  is  not 
good,  but  are  penalties  for  vice  and  deterrents  from  its  commis¬ 
sion. 

“  Pain  in  man 

Bears  the  high  mission  of  the  flail  and  fan.” 

To  complete  this  line  of  thought  it  is  important  to  notice  that 
the  wellbeing  of  man  in  the  spiritual  system  is  attainable  only  in 
the  life  of  love,  realized  for  the  individual  in  his  own  personal 
character  and  life  and  for  society  in  the  kingdom  of  Christ  on 
earth.  And  love  in  its  essence  involves  the  spirit  of  self-sacrifice 
or  self-devotement  in  bringing  men  into  harmony  with  God  in 
his  righteousness  and  grace,  in  maintaining  his  truth  and  law  and 
thereby  promoting  universal  wellbeing  in  the  kingdom  of  Christ. 
But  sacrificial  love  in  a  human  being  can  reveal  itself  only  in  ser¬ 
vice  to  others,  which  involves  self-privation  and,  it  may  be,  posi¬ 
tive  suffering.  Hence  Christ  as  the  ideal  man,  in  whom  God 
comes  into  humanity  to  reconcile  the  world  unto  himself,  reveals 
the  divine  love,  under  the  conditions  and  limitations  of  man,  in 
his  humiliation,  suffering  and  death  for  men.  Thereby  in  the 
presence  of  the  selfishness  dominant  among  men  and  in  the  act 
of  redeeming  men  therefrom,  he  reveals,  asserts  and  maintains 
the  law  of  love  in  its  unchanging  and  universal  supremacy  and 
inviolability.  Here  is  the  highest  revelation  of  the  subordination 
of  privation  and  suffering  to  the  highest  ends  of  the  spiritual 
system.  And  here,  from  a  new  point  of  view,  we  catch  a  glimpse 

1  Wilhelm  Meister,  bk.  ii.  chap.  13. 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  NATURE. 


311 


of  that  superiority  to  conditions  and  limitations  which  we  have 
repeatedly  noticed  in  the  personality  even  of  finite  beings.  For 
this  self-sacrifice  in  privation  and  suffering  for  others  is  of  the 
essence  of  love,  in  which  the  man  realizes  at  once  his  own  high¬ 
est  good  and  the  highest  good  of  all  in  the  kingdom  of  Christ. 
We  can  only  allude  to  this  here.  Its  full  elucidation  must  be 
postponed  till  we  study  the  revelation  of  God  in  Christ  reconcil¬ 
ing  the  world  unto  himself.  In  the  light  of  that  revelation  we 
may  apprehend  the  significance  of  that  central  fact  in  human  his¬ 
tory  that  it  is  only  he  who  was  preeminently  the  man  of  sorrows 
and  acquainted  with  grief,  in  whom  God  comes  to  man  and  re¬ 
veals  the  nature  of  his  divine  love,  and  who  brings  men  to  God 
and  transforms  human  society  into  his  kingdom  of  righteousness 
and  peace  and  joy  in  the  Holy  Spirit. 

Third  Answer :  Notwithstanding  physical  evil,  we  find  on 
examining  the  physical  system  that  it  is  promotive  not  only  of 
development  but  also  of  happiness. 

Here  the  first  thought  to  be  considered  is,  that  the  perfection 
of  a  being  and  its  harmony  with  the  constitution  and  laws  of  the 
universe,  that  is,  with  its  environment,  constitute  its  wellbeing 
or  true  good.  In  proportion  as,  under  the  discipline  of  life,  how¬ 
ever  painful  and  trying  for  the  time,  a  man  is  developed  toward 
the  perfection  of  his  being,  he  becomes  capable  of  purer,  greater 
and  more  varied  enjoyment.  The  lower  joy  lost  is  replaced  by 
joy  of  a  higher  character.  As  Paul  describes  his  experience,  the 
loss  is  gain. 

Besides  this  there  is  a  keen  strong  joy  in  work  and  achieve¬ 
ment,  in  conflict  and  conquest,  in  surmounting  difficulties  and 
resisting  evil.  There  is  joy  in  the  assertion  of  one’s  personality 
against  adverse  circumstances,  in  standing  strong  and  unsubdued 
in  the  endurance  of  pain,  in  the  consciousness  of  rectitude  in  a 
firm  and  vigorous  doing  of  duty  and  accomplishing  of  work  under 
obloquy,  poverty  and  suffering.  There  is  joy  in  suffering  itself 
when  incurred  in  prosecuting  a  worthy  work.  There  is  joy  in 
the  self-sacrifice  of  love  to  God  and  man,  even  though  leading  to 
a  martyr’s  stake ;  joy  which  may  mount  to  exultation  and  tri¬ 
umph.  Here  is  a  strong,  manly  joy,  stronger  and  purer  and 
nobler  than  any  which  a  life  of  indulgence,  luxurious  ease  and 
self-gratification  can  give.  No  history  presents  more  numerous 
or  more  noble  examples  of  this  sublime  joy,  of  men  and  women 
rejoicing  that  they  are  counted  worthy  to  suffer  in  support  of 
truth  and  righteousness,  than  the  history  of  Christianity. 


312 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


This  is  not  mere  theory ;  it  is  fact  attested  in  the  common  life 
of  man.  It  is  in  these  acts  of  energy  and  mastery  that  a  man 
feels  his  life  to  the  utmost,  that  he  feels  its  highest  capacity  and 
intensity,  and  is  exhilarated  in  the  highest  consciousness  of 
power.  In  vacation  men  find  recreation  in  athletic  achievements, 
in  risking  life  and  limb  in  climbing  mountains,  in  yachting  to  the 
arctic  seas,  in  tramping  through  forests,  sleeping  on  the  ground, 
hunting  and  fishing,  putting  off  the  comforts  of  civilization  and 
enduring  the  discomforts  of  savage  life  ;  and  all  for  the  exhil¬ 
aration  and  enjoyment  of  it.  Men  propose  the  attainment  of 
release  from  labor  and  care,  and  the  enjoyment  of  unbroken 
peace  and  luxurious  ease  ;  they  hope  for  a  time  when*  they  can 
live  not  to  minister  but  to  be  ministered  unto.  At  last  they  get 
riches  ;  the  end  toiled  for  through  long  years  is  attained  ;  but  it 
only  disappoints  them.  They  are  oppressed  with  ennui ;  for  the 
first  time  life  becomes  tasteless,  monotonous,  wearisome.  Hence 
it  is  that  men,  after  getting  riches,  continue  hard  at  work  in  busi¬ 
ness  and  risk  their  gains  in  new  enterprises  ;  it  is  not  necessarily 
through  covetousness,  but  rather  through  the  radical  impulse  to 
exert  their  powers,  through  the  necessity  of  action  and  achieve¬ 
ment  to  the  highest  consciousness  of  life.  So  Carlyle  truly  says  : 
44  It  is  a  calumny  to  say  that  men  are  roused  to  heroic  actions  by 
ease,  hope  of  pleasure,  recompense  —  sugar -plums  of  any  kind  in 
this  world  or  the  next.  In  the  meanest  mortal  there  lies  some¬ 
thing  nobler.  ...  It  is  not  to  taste  sweet  things,  but  to  do  noble 
and  true  things  and  vindicate  himself  under  God’s  heaven  as  a 
God-made  man,  that  the  poorest  son  of  Adam  dimly  longs.  Show 
him  the  way  to  do  that,  the  dullest  day-drudge  kindles  into  a 
hero.  They  wrong  man  greatly  who  say  he  is  seduced  by  ease. 
Difficulty,  abnegation,  martyrdom,  death,  are  the  allurements 
that  act  on  the  heart  of  man.  Kindle  the  inner  genial  life  of  him, 
you  have  a  flaive  that  burns  up  all  lower  considerations.”  1 

The  theory  that  the  universe  exists  to  pour  enjoyment  into  the 
passive  capacity  of  the  soul,  to  make  men  happy  by  the  gratifica¬ 
tion  of  appetites  and  selfish  desires,  issues  logically  in  pessimism. 
The  gratification  of  a  selfish  desire  like  covetousness  or  ambition, 
is  but  fuel  to  the  flame.  The  desire  grows  by  what  it  feeds  on. 
In  that  way  it  is  impossible  for  man  to  attain  a  satisfying  life ; 
the  heart  becomes  but  a  nest  of  insatiate  and  stinging  reptiles, 
and  life  is  not  worth  living.  It  is  only  in  love  to  God  and  man, 
in  the  44  noble  deeds  and  daring  high  ”  of  self-devoting  service, 

1  Hero-Worship,  p.  237,  ed.  1858. 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  NATURE. 


313 


that  man  finds  the  true  worth  and  imperishable  blessedness  of 
life,  the  fountain  of  living  water  opened  within  him,  not  flowing 
in,  but  flowing  forth  unto  everlasting  life. 

This  aspect  of  life  and  its  enjoyment  is  commonly  overlooked 
both  by  those  who  urge  and  those  who  answer  the  objection 
founded  on  physical  evil.  When  this  is  taken  into  account  the 
force  of  the  objection  is  broken.  If  the  world  were  so  constituted 
that  happiness  came  only  in  a  life  of  indolence  and  ease,  of  self-in¬ 
dulgence  and  being  ministered  unto,  pessimism  would  have  been 
the  only  true  theory  of  the  universe.  On  the  contrary  we  live  in 
a  rugged  world  and  must  work  to  subdue  and  possess  it.  But  the¬ 
ism  makes  the  significance  of  it  plain.  Our  lot  in  the  world  is 
in  harmony  with  our  largest  receptive  capacities,  our  grandest 
powers  and  our  best  impulses  ;  it  is  fitted  to  unfold  all  that  is 
best  in  us,  and  to  inspire  us  to  seek  and  to  enable  us  to  attain  all 
that  makes  life  worth  living.  God  has  endowed  us  with  reason 
and  free  will,  with  conscience,  energy  and  courage,  with  spiritual 
capacities,  aspirations  and  possibilities ;  he  has  given  us  free  ac¬ 
cess  to  him  for  inspiration,  invigoration  and  support.  And  he 
puts  us  in  conditions  which  incessantly  demand  from  us  the  exer¬ 
tion  of  spiritual  power  rising  above  and  controlling  the  fleshly  in 
us  and  the  earthly  about  us  ;  which  demand  love,  faith,  hope, 
courage,  and  ever  renewed  approach  to  the  Spirit  of  God  for  fresh 
inspiration,  guidance  and  spiritual  power.  Thus  the  very  condi¬ 
tions  which  limit  us  are  the  means  of  arousing  and  concentrating 
our  energies,  developing  our  capacities  and  powers,  directing  our 
action  wisely  to  right  ends,  forming  in  us  godlike  characters,  and 
realizing  the  highest  possibilities  of  our  being. 

A  second  consideration  in  this  answer  to  the  objection  is,  that 
the  laws  and  arrangements  of  nature  are  good.  The  evil  comes 
from  disregarding  them.  And  certainly  the  design  of  the  Author 
of  nature  must  be  inferred  from  its  laws  and  arrangements,  not 
from  evil  incidental  to  the  disregard  of  them.  For  the  very  rea¬ 
son  that  the  laws  are  good,  the  disregard  of  them  must  bring 
evil.  Because  the  laws  are  good,  it  is  wise  and  right  in  the  Au¬ 
thor  of  nature  to  sustain  them.  If  any  one  disregards  them  it 
would  not  be  wise  or  right  to  suspend  the  law  to  prevent  injury 
to  one  who  disregards  it.  Hence  it  is  the  same  arrangement  of 
nature  which  occasions  evil  to  him  who  disregards  the  law  and 
good  to  him  whose  action  is  in  harmony  with  it.  The  nervous 
system,  which  is  the  source  of  all  the  physical  enjoyment  of 
health,  is  the  same  which,  disordered  by  drunkenness,  occasions 


314 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


all  the  horrors  of  delirium  -  tremens.  The  laws  which  insure 
health  to  the  community  that  conforms  with  them,  occasion  dis¬ 
ease  and  pestilence  to  the  community  that  disregards  them  by 
neglecting  drainage,  cleanliness,  ventilation  and  other  requisites 
to  healthy  life.  Nature  itself  reveals  the  immutability  and  in¬ 
violability  of  law  and  the  dependence  thereon  of  the  universal 
wellbeing. 

A  third  point  to  be  noticed  in  this  answer  is  the  adaptation  of 
the  several  species  to  their  environment,  and  the  approach  of  indi¬ 
viduals  to  the  ideal  of  their  species  as  perfect  in  its  kind ;  so  that 
the  constitution  of  a  creature  with  all  its  limitation  is  best  for  it 
in  the  circumstances  of  its  existence.  It  would  be  no  blessing  to 
an  oyster,  in  its  environment,  to  have  the  keen  senses  of  a  dog. 
This  would  follow  from  the  theory  of  evolution  ;  because  the 
modification  and  origination  of  species  are  supposed  to  be  effected 
by  the  environment ;  and  so  far  as  they  are  so,  they  must  be 
adapted  to  it.  Evolution  does  not  destroy  the  force  of  our  reply 
to  the  objection.  It  only  reveals  a  plan,  receiving  accomplish¬ 
ment  through  all  time,  to  secure  the  adaptation  of  the  species  to 
its  environment,  and  thus  to  secure  the  widest  range  of  life  and 
the  highest  attainable  good  for  the  several  species  in  the  circum¬ 
stances  in  which  they  live.  It  must  be  added  that  no  brute  is 
aware  of  its  limitations  and  discontented  with  its  nature  and  en¬ 
vironment,  because,  not  being  endowed  with  reason,  it  cannot 
look  over  its  own  limits  into  any  higher  condition  and  compare 
itself  with  beings  of  a  higher  order. 

It  is  objected  that  with  the  progressive  modification  of  their 
environment  species  become  extinct.  But  this  merely  refers  us 
back  to  the  finiteness  of  the  universe  and  its  consequent  imper¬ 
fection  and  progressiveness.  In  any  stage  of  its  evolution  after 
it  has  become  capable  of  sustaining  sentient  life,  it  is  filled  with 
living  beings  adapted  to  it  and  of  as  high  an  order  as  could  live 
under  the  conditions  then  existing.  As  the  world  passes  to  a 
higher  stage,  these,  whose  organisms  are  not  adapted  to  the  new 
conditions,  disappear  and  beings  of  a  higher  order  succeed.  The 
gradual  extinction  of  a  species  in  this  way  is  no  more  incompati¬ 
ble  with  the  goodness  of  God  than  their  death  in  any  other  way. 
It  is  simply  incidental  to  the  limitation  and  imperfection  insepa¬ 
rable  from  the  finite,  and  to  the  necessary  progressiveness  of  the 
physical  system.  And  it  is  certainly  no  injustice  to  the  myriads 
of  supposable  plesiosauri,  megalosauri,  pentacrinites,  and  the  like, 
that  they  have  never  been  brought  into  existence.  Certainly  no 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  NATURE. 


315 


one  will  urge  that,  if  the  earth  had  remained  till  now  inhabited 
only  by  creatures  of  this  low  order,  it  would  prove  the  wisdom 
and  goodness  of  God  more  than  it  does  advanced  to  what  it  now 
is.  In  the  future,  when  man’s  selection  shall  have  superseded 
natural  selection,  noxious  animals,  insects  and  plants  will  disap¬ 
pear.  But  that  disappearance  will  be  incidental  to  the  progress 
of  the  cosmos  as  a  whole,  in  which  the  inferior  and  imperfect 
must  give  place  to  that  which  is  superior  and  better. 

A  fourth  point  to  be  noticed  is  the  evident  design  in  nature  to 
multiply  life  and  its  joys.  The  evidence  of  intelligent  and  be¬ 
nevolent  direction  in  nature  does  not  require  us  to  show  that 
everything  exists  for  the  welfare  of  man.  In  the  bounty  of  the 
universal  Father  there  is  provision  both  for  man  and  beast.  “  He 
giveth  to  the  beast  his  food  and  to  the  young  ravens  when  they 
cry.  He  causeth  the  grass  to  grow  for  the  cattle  and  herb  for 
the  service  of  man.”  The  design  is  evident  to  fill  the  world  as 
full  as  it  can  hold  with  life  and  enjoyment.  While  it  is  a  sphere 
for  the  action  of  rational  beings  and  opens  to  them  the  possibility 
of  attaining  their  true  and  highest  good  in  the  realizing  of  spirit¬ 
ual  ends,  there  is  infused  into  every  lower  condition  of  matter, 
not  yet  fitted  to  be  the  vehicle  of  rational  intelligence,  every 
grade  of  sensitive  life  of  which  it  is  capable.  As  in  a  pile  of  can¬ 
non  -  balls  the  interstices  may  be  filled  with  smaller  balls,  and 
again  with  musket  bullets,  and  again  with  shot,  and  again  with 
sand,  so  all  the  interstices  of  the  world  are  filled  with  successively 
lower  and  lower  forms  of  life  so  that  its  utmost  capacity  for  life 
and  its  joys  may  be  filled. 

,  It  has  already  been  said  that  the  evidence  of  directive,  intelli¬ 
gence,  and  especially  of  love,  found  in  nature  alone,  is  incom¬ 
plete.  But  in  nature  we  find  evidence  of  directive  intelligence. 
And  the  evidence  of  subordination  to  spiritual  ends,  of  progres¬ 
sive  realization  of  results  of  higher  and  higher  order,  and  of  mul¬ 
tiplied  adjustments  and  arrangements  productive  of  happiness  at 
least  precludes  the  belief  that  the  directing  power  is  malignant. 
And  a  rational  being,  who  knows  moral  distinctions  and  feels 
moral  obligation  in  his  own  conscience,  must  find  in  nature  pre¬ 
ponderant  evidence  that  the  power  directive  in  it  is  righteous 
and  benevolent. 

This  is  confirmed  by  the  fact  that  from  the  observation  of  the 
world  men  in  all  ages  of  civilization  and  of  diverse  philosophical 
opinions  have  agreed  in  the  conclusion,  that  the  law  of  love  is 
supreme  and  universal ;  “  that  the  real  nature  of  the  universe  is 


816 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


such  that  it  warrants  on  our  part  unlimited  love,  and  absolute 
trust  that  the  highest  moral  nature  is  nearest  in  accord  with  the 
truth  of  things.”  1  Thus  not  merely  from  the  intuitions  of  our 
rational  and  moral  constitution,  but  also  from  the  observation  of 
nature,  we  are  justified  in  the  faith  that  physical  evils  which  we 
cannot  explain  are,  in  some  way  not  yet  perceived  by  us,  in  har¬ 
mony  with  the  righteousness  and  benevolence  of  God. 

VIII.  Objections  against  the  validity  of  the  infer¬ 
ence. —  First  to  be  noticed  is  the  objection  that  order  and  law 
prove  the  absence  of  will.  Comte  often  appeals  to  this  as  a  sort 
of  axiom ;  and  it  is  commonly  urged  as  an  objection  entirely  re¬ 
futing  the  theistic  inference  from  law  and  order  in  nature.  The 
objection  is  founded  on  a  gross  misrepresentation  of  theism.  It 
falsely  assumes  that  according  to  theistic  teaching  the  ultimate 
ground  of  the  universe  is  the  almiglitiness  of  arbitrary  and  capri¬ 
cious  will  ;  that  God  is  merely  a  power  that  arbitrarily  breaks  in 
on  the  course  of  nature  and  is  entirely  exempt  from  all  law. 
Hence  it  infers  that  so  far  as  the  reign  of  law  and  order  is  found 
in  nature,  God  is  excluded.  So  Leon  Dumont  says  :  “  If  the  ex¬ 
istence  of  a  superior  intelligence  in  the  world  can  be  demonstrated 
by  physical  proofs,  it  is  not  by  the  spectacle  of  order  and  regu¬ 
larity,  which  indicate  on  the  contrary  the  absence  of  any  dispos¬ 
ing  force,  but  really  by  abnormal  and  contradictory  facts,  in  a 
word  by  miracles.”  And  A.  Elley  Finch  in  a  Discourse  on  the 
Inductive  Philosophy  before  the  Sunday  Lecture  Society,  says: 
“  The  scientific  sense  of  the  term  Law  is  entirely  opposite  to  that 
of  will.  .  .  .  Will,  in  the  only  intelligible  sense,  or  of  which  we  can 
have  any  knowledge,  namely,  human  will,  is  vengeful,  arbitrary, 
variable  and  capricious.”  Professor  Tyndall  in  his  Belfast  Ad¬ 
dress  said  :  “  Science  demands  the  radical  extirpation  of  caprice, 
and  the  absolute  reliance  upon  law  in  nature.”  Immediately  be¬ 
fore  he  had  said :  “  The  state  of  things  to  be  displaced  may  be 
gathered  from  a  passage  of  Euripides  quoted  by  Hume,  ‘  There 
is  nothing  in  the  world ;  no  glory,  no  prosperity.  The  gods  toss 
all  into  confusion,  mix  everything  with  its  reverse,  that  all  of  us, 
from  our  ignorance  and  uncertainty,  may  pay  them  the  more  wor¬ 
ship  and  reverence.’  ”  And  J.  S.  Mill  says  of  God  :  “  If  it  was 
his  will  that  men  should  know  that  they  themselves  and  the  world 
are  his  work,  he,  being  omnipotent,  had  only  to  will  that  they 
should  be  aware  of  it.”  2  That  is,  he  could  will  knowledge  into 

1  Phil.  Basis  of  Theism,  pp.  212-224. 

2  Three  Essays  on  Religion,  p.  179. 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  NATURE. 


317 


men's  minds  without  any  action  of  their  minds  ;  and  equally,  it 
would  seem,  without  their  having  any  minds.  He  could  as  well 
will  knowledge  into  a  stone.  If  not,  he  is  not  almighty.  From 
the  same  misapprehension  arises  the  alleged  dilemma :  “  Either 
the  world  is  a  machine  left  by  God  to  run  of  itself,  or  else  it  is  a 
machine  so  clumsily  constructed  that  its  maker  must  stand  by 
and  move  its  wheels.”  Hence  the  impression  that  so  soon  as  we 
know  the  laws  according  to  which  nature  goes  on  we  have  no 
more  need  to  believe  in  God ;  so  soon  as  we  know  how  a  thing  is 
made  we  can  no  longer  believe  that  it  had  any  maker.  Hence 
*4  Copernicus  is  represented  as  the  man  who  has  withdrawn  the 
seat  from  under  the  ancient  Hebrew  and  Christian  deity,”  and 
we  are  told  that  44  Newton  robbed  the  heavens  of  their  gods  and 
disenchanted  the  world.”  1 

But  the  objection,  being  founded  on  a  total  misapprehension, 
is  of  no  force  against  theism  rightly  understood.  This  teaches 
that  the  ultimate  ground  of  the  universe  is  not  will  alone,  but 
reason  ;  that  God  is  Reason  energizing ;  that  his  will  is  a  rational 
will,  not  acting  capriciously  but  in  the  light  of  reason  and  in  har¬ 
mony  with  its  truths,  laws,  ideals  and  ends.  Here  is  the  basis  of 
order  and  law.  The  action  of  a  will  in  conformity  with  the  un¬ 
changing  principles  of  reason  must  in  its  very  nature  be  orderly 
and  accordant  with  law.  This  is  exemplified  in  human  life.  The 
action  of  a  man  of  fixed  integrity  is  uniform  in  uprightness.  The 
action  of  a  man  devoted  to  a  great  cause,  like  Wilberforce,  Clark¬ 
son,  Luther,  Paul,  is  uniform  and  persistent  against  all  obstacles. 
Comte  himself  in  his  persistent  devotion  to  the  development  of 
his  system  of  thought  is  a  striking  example.  In  fact  the  ultimate 
basis  of  the  unity  of  a  system  orderly  under  law  is  this,  that  it  is 
pervaded  and  controlled  by  thought  which  it  reveals  in  principles 
and  laws  to  the  studious  observer.  The  objection  on  the  con¬ 
trary  insists  that  order  and  law  reveal  the  absence  of  a  pervading 
intelligence  and  a  guiding  mind.  Applied  to  ordinary  life  it 
would  insist  that  while  soldiers  march  keeping  time  with  the  mu¬ 
sic  there  is  no  thought  guiding  their  movements ;  if  they  break 
into  disorderly  movements  that  would  prove  the  presence  and 
guidance  of  mind.  If  the  railroad  train  comes  in  every  day  at 
the  same  minute,  that  proves  that  no  mind  regulated  it.  Only 
when  it  runs  off  the  track  and  is  delayed  is  the  guidance  of  an 
engineer  revealed.  If  a  merchant  goes  to  his  counting-room  and 
returns  to  his  dinner  at  the  same  hours  every  day,  he  acts  irra- 

1  Strauss,  Old  Faith  and  New,  Trans,  p.  123;  Jacobi,  Werke,  vol.  ii.  p.  52. 


318 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


tionally ;  it  is  only  when  he  acts  at  hap-hazard  that  he  reveals 
intelligence. 

Theism  affirms  that  absolute  and  perfect  reason  is  the  ultimate 
ground  of  the  universe  and  consequently  of  its  order  and  law  and 
its  unity  in  a  system.  The  objection  is  not  against  theism,  but 
against  the  objector’s  own  unworthy  conception  of  God.  It  must 
be  acknowledged,  however,  that  some  theologians  have  taught 
that  the  universe  is  grounded  in  arbitrary  will  above  all  law,  and 
so  have  invited  the  objection. 

It  may  be  replied  further  to  the  objector,  that  while  denying 
the  personal  God,  he  ascribes  to  law  and  order  the  functions  of 
an  intelligent  person. 

The  objector  surreptitiously  brings  into  the  idea  of  law  the  ex¬ 
traneous  idea  of  power.  For  example,  Darwin  says  of  Lamarck: 
“  He  first  did  the  eminent  service  of  arousing  attention  to  the 
probability  of  all  change  in  the  organic  as  well  as  in  the  inorganic 
world  being  the  result  of  law,  and  not  of  miraculous  interposi¬ 
tion.”  Here  law  is  conceived  as  exerting  both  directive  and  ef¬ 
ficient  power  and  thus  as  exercising  the  functions  of  a  personal 
being.  And  this  is  a  single  example  of  a  confusion  of  thought 
common  among  skeptics.  But  a  law  of  nature  is  merely  the 
statement  of  a  uniform  sequence  of  events  in  nature  as  a  fact. 
Mr.  Darwin  thinks  he  explains  the  fact  by  saying  it  is  the  “  re¬ 
sult  ”  of  a  law  which  itself  is  merely  a  statement  of  the  fact.  Did 
ever  mediaeval  schoolman  more  completely  lose  himself  in  words  ? 

On  the  other  hand,  in  speaking  of  power,  the  objector  surrep¬ 
titiously  brings  in  the  idea  of  law.  For  example,  it  is  announced 
as  a  sort  of  axiom  in  science  that  every  body  must  act  according 
to  the  law  of  its  being.  Physical  science  thus  declares  that  the 
action  of  every  body  is  regulated  by  law.  But  the  objector  in  ap¬ 
pealing  to  this  maxim  silently  assumes  that  the  power  exerted 
by  the  being  contains  in  itself  law.  But  power  and  law  are 
totally  distinct  and  cannot  be  identified.  If,  as  science  declares, 
the  power  in  acting  is  regulated  by  law,  the  law  must  either 
be  external  to  the  power,  and  then  it  is  necessary  to  refer  it  to  a 
directing  mind  above  the  power  ;  or  else  the  power  has  its  law 
within  itself  and  so  regulates  and  directs  itself,  and  then  it  is 
itself  a  rational  free  will. 

In  fact  the  idea  of  power  or  force  does  not  contain  the  idea 
either  of  rational  law  or  of  uniform  sequence.  There  is  nothing  in 
force  which  explains  why  in  any  case  the  force  is  so  much  and  no 
more,  why  it  acts  now  and  not  then,  why  it  causes  motion  in  this 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  NATURE. 


319 


direction  rather  than  that,  or  why  it  acts  in  any  uniform  sequence. 
The  conception  of  power  acting  under  the  regulation  of  law  can 
be  realized  only  in  a  rational  free  agent  that  is  either  the  power 
itself  or  else  another  that  is  above  the  power  and  directs  it.  Ac¬ 
cordingly  J.  S.  Mill  affirms  in  his  review  of  Comte :  “  The  laws 
of  nature  cannot  account  for  their  own  origin.” 

The  same  confusion  of  thought  is  exemplified  in  appealing  to 
the  laws  of  natural  selection  and  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest. 
In  fact  these  phrases  do  not  properly  denote  either  the  power 
which  acts  or  the  uniform  sequence  in  which  it  acts,  but  rather 
the  effect  or  result  of  the  power  acting  thus  uniformly.  And,  as 
Canon  Mozley  has  said,  it  is  a  negative  or  privative  result.  The 
survivor  “  does  not  owe  to  it  its  existence,  but  only  its  sole  ex¬ 
istence,  as  distinguished  from  the  fate  of  a  rival  that  perishes. 
.  .  .  Natural  selection  only  weeds  and  does  not  plant ;  it  is  the 
drain  of  nature,  carrying  off  the  irregularities,  the  monstrosities, 
the  abortions ;  it  comes  in  after  and  upon  the  active  develop¬ 
ments  of  nature  to  prune  and  thin  them  ;  but  it  does  not  create 
a  species  ;  it  does  not  possess  one  productive  or  generative  func¬ 
tion.”  1 

The  objection  therefore  is  refuted ;  our  inference  is  legitimate 
that  the  order  and  law  of  nature  reveal  in  it  a  directing  mind. 
Mr.  Martineau  has  well  said  :  “  What  have  we  found  by  moving 
out  along  all  radii  into  the  infinite  ?  That  the  whole  is  woven 
together  in  one  sublime  tissue  of  intellectual  relations,  geomet¬ 
rical  and  physical  —  the  realized  original,  of  which  all  our  science 
is  but  a  partial  copy.  That  science  is  the  crowning  product  and 
supreme  expression  of  human  reason.  .  .  .  Unless  therefore  it 
takes  more  mental  faculty  to  construe  a  universe  than  to  cause  it, 
to  read  the  book  of  nature  than  to  write  it,  we  must  more  than 
ever  look  upon  its  sublime  face  as  the  living  appeal  of  thought 
to  thought.”  And  we  may  fitly  conclude  this  discussion  in  the 
words  of  Professor  Asa  Gray  in  closing  his  address  before  the 
American  Association  for  the  Advancement  of  Science  in  1872: 
“  Let  us  hope  and  confidently  expect  that  ...  in  the  future 
even  more  than  in  the  past,  faith  in  an  order,  which  is  the  basis 
of  science,  will  not  (as  it  cannot  reasonably)  be  dissevered  from 
faith  in  an  Ordainer,  which  is  the  basis  of  religion.” 

A  second  objection  is,  that  the  inference  from  the  evidence  of 
final  causes  in  nature  is  not  scientific. 

Lord  Bacon  objected  to  the  inference  from  final  causes  in  the 

1  Essays,  vol.  ii.  pp.  387,  396,  399,  402,  406. 


320 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


empirical  study  of  nature,  as  misleading  by  turning  attention 
away  from  efficient  causes  and  so  hindering  the  progress  of 
science.  He  affirmed  its  validity  in  philosophical  and  theological 
investigations,  which  he  recognized  as  legitimate  spheres  of  true 
and  scientific  knowledge.  Some  years  ago,  when  Comte’s  Posi¬ 
tive  Philosophy  was  regarded  more  than  it  is  now  as  an  authority 
in  the  speculations  of  physical  science,  it  was  said,  with  an  air  of 
triumph,  that  Bacon  had  excluded  final  causes  from  the  sphere  of 
human  knowledge  and  that  Comte,  in  excluding  efficient  causes, 
had  only  carried  out  the  progress  of  scientific  thought  to  its  legit¬ 
imate  result.  But  with  the  rejection  of  efficient  causes  science 
found  very  soon  that  it  had  no  ground  to  stand  on,  and  now  in 
the  law  of  the  persistence  of  force  recognizes  them  more  conspicu¬ 
ously  than  ever.  But  final  causes  are  still  spoken  against  as 
illegitimate  for  purposes  of  physical  science. 

As  to  this,  the  students  of  physical  science  are  the  proper  judges 
what  methods  are  most  available  in  its  advancement.  If  they 
find  the  evidence  of  final  causes  of  little  or  no  value  in  their  in¬ 
vestigations,  the  theologian  has  nothing  to  say  against  it.  But 
empirical  science  is  but  one  grade  of  human  knowledge.  If  final 
causes  are  of  little  value  in  this,  they  may  be  effectively  used  in 
the  profounder  inquiries  of  philosophy  and  theology,  as  to  the 
reasonableness  of  things,  their  ultimate  ground,  law  and  end,  and 
their  unity  in  the  all-comprehending  system  of  the  universe. 

It  must  also  be  noticed  that  this  objection  and  those  which  are 
to  follow  are  directed  solely  against  the  evidence  from  final 
causes,  which  is  but  one  of  the  five  lines  of  evidence  of  the  direc¬ 
tion  of  mind  in  nature.  The  objector  will  hardly  affirm  that 
science  excludes  the  others  ;  that  it  takes  no  recognition  of  the 
facts  that  nature  has  scientific  significance  in  thought,  that  it  is 
orderly  under  law,  that  it  is  progressively  realizing  higher  and 
higher  orders  of  beings,  and  that  it,  with  all  that  is  in  the  uni¬ 
verse,  is  in  the  unity  of  a  system  under  the  law  of  continuity. 

In  the  first  place,  we  reply  to  the  objection  that  scientists  find 
in  nature  arrangements  and  adjustments  which  they  describe  in 
language  implying  final  causes  and  the  direction  of  mind  ;  and 
probably  it  would  be  impossible  to  describe  them  correctly  other¬ 
wise.  No  other  language  would  fairly  and  fully  express  the  facts 
observed.  For,  as  Professor  Agassiz  said  in  the  last  year  of  his 
life  in  a  letter  to  the  Duke  of  Argyll :  “  The  truth  is  that  life 
has  all  the  wealth  of  endowment  of  the  most  comprehensive  men¬ 
tal  manifestations  and  none  of  the  simplicity  of  physical  phenom- 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  NATURE. 


321 


ena.”  Mr.  Darwin,  in  treating  of  the  Fertilization  of  Orchids, 
describes  many  and  marvelous  adaptations  in  plants.  Describing 
an  arrangement  to  bring  the  insects  into  contact  with  the  pollen, 
he  says :  “  Thus  we  have  the  rostellum  partially  closing  the  mouth 
of  the  nectary,  like  a  trap  set  in  a  run  for  game,  and  the  trap  so 
complex  and  perfect.”  And  in  all  his  descriptions  of  these  ar¬ 
rangements  he  uses  the  language  of  final  causes.  They  are  “  con¬ 
trivances  ”  “in  order  that  ”  the  effect  may  be  produced;  “the 
nectar  is  purposely  so  lodged  that  it  can  be  sucked  only  slowly.” 
In  treating  of  natural  selection  he  uses  language  of  the  same  kind. 
It  “  effects  improvement,”  “  checks  deviation,”  “  develops  struc¬ 
ture,”  “  acts  for  the  good  of  each  creature,”  is  “always  trying  to 
economize.”  He  says  :  “  It  may  be  metaphorically  said  that 
natural  selection  is  daily  and  hourly  scrutinizing  throughout  the 
world  every  variation,  even  the  slightest ;  rejecting  that  which  is 
bad,  preserving  and  adding  up  that  which  is  good,  silently  and 
incessantly  working,  whenever  and  wherever  opportunity  offers, 
at  the  improvement  of  every  organic  being.”  Professor  Tyndall 
says  :  “  The  continued  effort  of  animated  nature  is  to  improve  its 
condition  and  raise  itself  to  a  loftier  level.”  Professor  Haeckel 
writes  of  the  cells  in  an  organized  body  as  of  intelligent  individ¬ 
uals  in  a  community.  He  speaks  of  the  cell  as  at  first  satisfied 
with  solitude  ;  then  of  many  cells  “  gathered  into  communities  ;  ” 
“devoting  themselves”  to  special  services,  divided  into  “castes,” 
making  progress  through  “  the  division  of  labor,”  “  working  to¬ 
gether  for  the  common  end,”  becoming  “more  perfect  or  civil¬ 
ized.”  1  Mr.  Spencer  defines  life  as  “  the  continuous  adjustment 
of  internal  relations  to  external  relations.”  But  “adjustment” 
implies  mental  direction  and  arrangement.  Hume  says  :  “  One 
great  foundation  of  the  Copernican  system  is  the  maxim  that 
nature  acts  by  the  simplest  methods  and  chooses  the  most  proper 
means  to  any  end.”  This  is  “  the  principle  of  least  action,”  often 
appealed  to  in  physical  science ;  and  it  seems  to  have  no  mean¬ 
ing  except  as  implying  intelligent  direction.  As  Hume  himself 
says  :  “  Thus  all  the  sciences  almost  lead  us  insensibly  to  ac¬ 
knowledge  a  first  intelligent  Author,  and  their  authority  is  often 
so  much  the  greater  as  they  do  not  directly  profess  that  inten¬ 
tion.”  2 

A  second  reply  to  the  objection  is  that  inferences  from  final 
causes  are  common  in  physical  science,  and  that  many  accepted 

1  Evolution  of  Man,  Trans.,  vol.  i.  pp.  152,  153,  161. 

2  Natural  Religion,  part  xii. ;  Phil.  Works,  vol.  ii.  p.  523. 

21 


322 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


conclusions  rest  on  them.  Fifty  years  ago  there  were  theologians 
living  who  contended  that  the  fossil  plants  and  animals  were  cre¬ 
ated  as  they  are  and  were  not  remains  of  once  living  organized 
bodies.  They  were  ridiculed  without  mercy.  Yet  the  only  pos¬ 
sible  refutation  of  them  was  the  argument  from  final  causes.  The 
eye  of  the  trilobite  was  appealed  to  again  and  again  as  proving 
that  it  must  be  the  fossil  of  a  once  living  eye  made  to  see  with. 
On  the  same  argument  Cuvier  built  the  science  of  comparative 
anatomy,  and  by  it  Harvey  discovered  the  circulation  of  the  blood. 
From  stone-implements  science  infers  the  existence  and  habits  of 
prehistoric  men,  an  inference  solely  from  final  causes.  If  the  in¬ 
ference  from  the  evidence  of  final  causes  is  not  scientifically  legit¬ 
imate,  we  have  no  proof  that  men,  brutes  or  vegetables  existed 
before  the  beginning  of  human  history. 

A  third  answer  is  that  all  science  recognizes  nature  in  the  unity 
of  a  system,  the  cosmos.  But  it  is  involved  in  the  idea  of  a  sys¬ 
tem  that  it  is  the  realization  of  a  plan  and  thus  exists  for  an  end. 
The  cosmos  carries  us  back  to  the  archetypal  thought  which  it 
expresses,  and  so  to  the  absolute  reason  in  which  the  archetypal 
thought  is  eternal.  But  if  there  is  in  the  universe  a  rational  order 
or  plan  apprehensible  and  formulated  in  science,  there  must  be  in 
it  also  a  final  cause  or  an  end  to  be  accomplished.  This  end  is  the 
realization  of  the  archetypal  plan.  And  all  particular  individuals 
and  processes  must  be  directed  according  to  the  archetypal  plan 
and  subordinated  to  its  realization  as  an  end.  Wherever  there  is 
action  according  to  a  plan,  it  must  be  action  for  a  final  cause  or 
end,  which  is  the  realization  of  the  plan.  Evolution  brings  this 
out  in  bold  relief.  The  universe  is  no  longer  regarded  as  a  fin¬ 
ished  system  in  the  unity  of  merely  static  relations  in  space,  but 
as  a  system  in  the  unity  of  dynamic  relations,  progressive  in  time 
toward  the  realization  of  an  ideal.  In  an  organism  the  parts  are 
in  unity  by  subordination  to  the  development  of  the  whole.  It 
is  in  the  sphere  of  organic  life  that  final  causes  are  most  con¬ 
spicuous  ;  and  objectors  say  that  physical  science  has  already  shut 
them  up  within  that  sphere,  and  that  Mr.  Darwin’s  discovery  of 
the  survival  of  the  fittest  and  of  natural  selection  will  thrust  them 
out  from  that  and  so  from  the  universe  altogether.  But  now  Mr. 
Spencer  tells  us  that  the  growth  of  a  living  organism  is  the  type 
of  the  evolution  of  the  universe.  Then  everything  in  the  universe 
is  subordinate  to  its  development  as  a  whole.  Then  just  the  con¬ 
trary  of  what  objectors  have  so  loudly  claimed  is  true,  and  evolu¬ 
tion  has  taken  the  subordination  of  the  parts  to  the  development 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  NATURE. 


323 


of  the  whole  in  an  organism  and  made  it  the  type  of  the  entire 
development  of  the  universe.  It  has  thus  established  the  prin¬ 
ciple  of  final  causes  in  the  very  constitution  of  the  universe. 

History  gives  no  account  of  the  origin  of  the  idea  of  the  uni¬ 
verse,  of  all  nature  included  in  the  unity  of  a  system.  Primitive 
men  must  very  early  have  derived  an  idea  of  the  uniform  course 
of  nature  in  some  rude  form  from  the  regular  course  of  the  sun, 
moon  and  stars,  from  the  alternation  of  day  and  night,  the  course 
of  the  seasons,  the  leafing,  flowering  and  fruiting  of  plants.  And 
the  idea  in  some  rude  or  legendary  form  has  usually  been  found 
among  uncultivated  tribes.  It  has  survived  the  convulsions  of 
all  the  ages,  and,  after  the  labors  of  many  generations,  is  brought 
before  us  in  all  the  complex  unity  and  grandeur  in  which  mod¬ 
ern  science  apprehends  it.  The  fact  that  the  universe  is  known 
in  the  unity  of  a  system  implies  that  it  is  the  expression  of  an 
archetypal  plan.  There  can  be  no  system  without  a  plan.  This 
plan  is  set  before  us  in  the  sciences,  which  are  the  mundus  intel- 
ligibilis ,  the  universe  translated  into  its  intellectual  equivalent  in 
the  mind  of  man.  But  the  existence  of  a  plan  implies  the  real¬ 
ization  of  an  end.  The  plan  at  once  directs  the  action  and  sets 
forth  the  end  to  be  realized  by  it.  An  architect  plans  a  building 
and  writes  all  the  specifications.  That  plan  sets  forth  the  end 
to  be  realized  in  the  building  ;  and  every  timber  and  stone  and 
nail,  every  decoration,  every  stroke  of  hammer,  saw  and  chisel,  is 
accordant  with  the  plan  and  subordinate  to  its  realization.  So 
the  fact  that  science  apprehends  the  universe  in  the  unity  of  a 
system  reveals  the  plan  according  to  which  it  is  constituted  and 
the  end  for  which  it  is  designed.  This  end  is  not  external  to  it, 
but  is  the  realization  of  its  plan ;  in  other  words,  it  is  the  per¬ 
fecting  of  the  universe  according  to  the  archetypal  plan  of  the 
absolute  Reason.  Therefore  every  being  and  process  in  it  exists 
and  acts  in  subordination  to  the  ends  of  the  whole.  Nothing 
exists  in  isolation.  Nothing  exists  by  and  for  itself.  Every¬ 
where  interaction,  intercommunication  —  all  things  in  thousands 
of  relations  and  gradations  acting  together  to  evolve  the  universe 
toward  the  realization  of  its  ideal.  No  individual  is  separated 
from  the  system  so  as  to  be  without  any  agency  in  its  evolution. 
Everything  has  significance,  not  for  itself  only,  but  also  for  others 
and  for  the  whole. 

If  we  pass  from  the  physical  system  to  the  spiritual,  we  see 
that  no  person  lives  in  isolation  by  and  for  himself  ;  all  persons 
are  subordinate  to  the  ends  of  the  system  in  the  interaction  and 


824 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


intercommunication  of  reciprocal  service  according  to  the  law  of 
love,  the  deepest  law  in  the  constitution  of  things. 

Thus  the  very  fact  that  the  universe  is  a  system  implies  that 
it  and  all  in  it  exist  for  an  end ;  and  this  end  is  in  the  funda¬ 
mental  plan  and  ideal  of  the  universe,  for  the  realization  of  which 
it  is  from  age  to  age  evolving  and  all  things  in  it  ceaselessly 
acting.  The  mere  mechanical  interpretation  of  nature  assumes 
the  interaction  of  the  primitive  elements  for  the  development  of 
the  universe  to  the  systematic  unity  which  science  sets  forth  in 
its  formulas  and  systems.  The  ultimate  atoms  work  together  for 
this  end ;  not  one  of  them  exists  in  isolation  by  and  for  itself. 
And  thus  at  the  basis  even  of  the  mechanical  interpretation  of 
nature  the  scientist  tacitly  and  unconsciously  lays  the  principle 
of  the  final  cause.  In  fact  no  finite  whole  can  have  its  ultimate 
ground,  law  and  end  within  itself.  It  always  carries  the  thought 
beyond  it;  it  always  reveals  the  background  of  the  absolute  on 
which  it  rests.  And  when  the  finite  whole  is  found  to  be  a  rea¬ 
sonable  system,  the  background  beyond  itself  which  it  reveals  to 
the  thought  is  the  absolute  Reason. 

A  third  objection  is  that  the  argument  from  final  causes  pre¬ 
supposes  a  knowledge  of  the  purposes  of  God  which  it  is  pre¬ 
sumptuous  in  man  to  assume.  Descartes  says :  “We  shall 
totally  reject  from  our  philosophy  all  investigation  of  final 
causes  ;  for  we  ought  not  to  be  so  presumptuous  as  to  think  that 
God  would  make  us  participants  in  his  counsels.”  The  objection 
is  still  insisted  on.  Descartes  probably  had  reference  to  the  de* 
sign  of  the  cosmos  as  a  whole.  But  we  have  seen  that  even  with 
reference  to  that,  through  our  knowledge  of  the  spiritual  system 
and  the  relation  of  the  physical  system  to  it,  we  can  say  without 
presumption  that  the  cosmos  as  a  whole  exists  for  and  is  subor¬ 
dinated  to  the  higher  ends  of  the  spiritual  system  and  of  per¬ 
sonal  beings.  But  even  if  we  had  not  knowledge  of  the  design 
of  the  cosmos  as  a  whole,  this  would  not  prevent  our  observing 
the  adjustments  and  uses  of  particular  objects  and  subordinate 
systems.  Though  one  is  not  taken  into  the  counsels  of  God,  he 
can  know  him  through  the  actions  and  works  in  which  he  reveals 
himself.  One  may  admire  the  skill  revealed  in  the  workman¬ 
ship  of  a  telescope  and  its  adaptation  to  disclose  distant  objects 
without  being  an  astronomer  and  knowing  all  its  scientific  uses. 
One  may  admire  the  skill  in  the  machinery  of  a  watch  and  infer 
that  it  was  made  according  to  an  intelligible  plan  and  for  a  rea¬ 
sonable  end  without  having  been  taken  into  the  counsels  of  the 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  NATURE. 


325 


watch-maker.  So  when  the  world  is  found  to  be  the  expression 
of  thought  and  the  realization  of  a  plan,  so  that  it  can  be  set 
forth  in  exact  science  which  is  its  intellectual  equivalent,  when  it 
is  found  to  be  ordered  under  law  and  progressively  realizing 
ideals,  we  may  infer  that  it  is  the  expression  of  intelligence  ;  and 
when  it  is  found  to  be  crowded  with  adaptations  and  adjustments 
fitted  to  effect  and  actually  effecting  specific  results,  we  may  in¬ 
fer  that  they  were  designed  for  these  ends,  whatever  other  ends 
unknown  to  us  they  also  accomplish.  This  is  only  inferring  the 
character  of  a  cause  from  the  observed  character  of  an  effect. 
And  if  this  is  not  possible,  it  is  impossible  for  God,  if  he  exists, 
to  reveal  himself  in  any  way  to  man  ;  because,  whatever  he 
might  do  to  reveal  himself,  the  man  cannot  infer  from  it  any 
intelligence  or  purpose  whatsoever.  So  it  is  put  in  the  Savoy¬ 
ard  vicar’s  profession  of  faith:  “  I  judge  the  world  by  its  order, 
though  I  am  ignorant  of  its  design  ;  because  it  is  sufficient  to 
compare  the  parts  and  note  their  concurrence,  relations  and  con¬ 
cert  of  action.  ...  I  am  like  a  man  who  sees  for  the  first  time 
an  open  watch,  who  cannot  refrain  from  admiring  the  workman¬ 
ship,  though  he  does  not  know  the  use  of  the  machine  and  has 
not  seen  the  dial-face.  I  do  not  know,  he  would  say,  what  all 
this  is  good  for;  but  I  see  that  each  piece  is  made  for  the  others; 
I  admire  the  workman  in  the  details  of  his  work ;  and  I  am  sure 
that  these  wheels  move  in  concert  onlv  for  some  common  end 
which  I  cannot  perceive.”1  We  find  final  causes  in  nature,  even 
when  we  cannot  “  scan  the  ultimate  purpose  of  the  whole.”  It 
is  not  necessary  to  be  taken  into  the  counsels  of  the  designer  and 
to  find  out  all  about  him  before  we  discover  evidence  of  design ; 
for  the  evidence  of  design  lies  immediately  in  the  observed  facts. 

A  fourth  objection  is  that  the  evidence  from  final  causes  is 
set  aside  as  soon  as  the  efficient  cause  and  the  law  of  its  uni¬ 
form  action  are  discovered.  Or,  as  Laplace  puts  it,  final  causes 
disappear  as  soon  as  we  obtain  the  data  requisite  for  resolving 
problems  scientifically.  This  means,  as  soon  as  we  discover  the 
efficient  cause  and  the  law  of  its  acting.  So  Mr.  Fiske  says: 
“  The  teleological  hypothesis  derives  its  apparent  confirmation, 
never  from  the  phenomena  which  were  explained  yesterday,  but 
always  from  phenomena  which  are  awaiting  explanation  to¬ 
morrow.”  2  This  objection  is  as  old  as  Lucretius,  who  protests 
against  the  belief  that  eyes  were  made  to  see  with,  “  since  noth- 

1  J.  J.  Rousseau,  iDmile,  chap.  iv.  p.  324. 

2  Cosmic  Philosophy,  vol.  ii.  p.  385. 


326 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


ing  is  born  in  the  body  in  order  that  we  may  use  it,  but  that 
which  is  born  in  the  body  creates  its  use.”  It  has  been  urged 
more  strenuously  than  ever  in  respect  to  the  theory  of  evolution. 
Mr.  Fiske  says  that  from  the  dawn  of  philosophic  discussion 
appeal  has  been  made  to  the  evidence  of  final  causes.  “Until 
the  establishment  of  the  doctrine  of  evolution,  the  glove  thus 
thrown  down  age  after  age  into  the  arena  of  philosophical  con¬ 
troversy  was  never  triumphantly  taken  up.  It  was  Mr.  Darwin 
who  first,  by  his  discovery  of  natural  selection,  supplied  the 
champions  of  science  with  the  resistless  weapon  by  which  to 
vanquish  in  this  their  chief  stronghold  the  champions  of  theol¬ 
ogy.”1  We  may  ask  in  passing  what  peculiar  interest  the  cham¬ 
pions  of  science,  as  such,  have  in  vanquishing  the  champions  of 
theology,  that  they  seize  with  such  a  shout  of  triumph  a  sup¬ 
posedly  effective  weapon  which  generation  after  generation  of 
them  have  been  looking  for  in  vain.  Professor  Haeckel  says  : 
“We  discover  therein  the  definite  death  of  all  teleological  and 
vitalistic  judgments  of  organisms.”  2  And  Noire  quotes  Geiger: 
“Nature  appears  to  be  wise ;  it  surprises  us  by  a  reason  surpass¬ 
ing  ours,  that  pervades  it.  Nature  harmonizes  with  our  reason, 
not  because  Nature  is  rational  or  subject  to  reason,  but  because 
reason  itself  is  natural,  developed  from  nature  and  in  accordance 
with  it.”  3  This,  it  will  be  noticed,  asserts  an  effect  transcending 
its  cause.  And  it  is  said,  “  the  earth  is  suited  to  its  inhabitants 
because  it  has  produced  them,  and  only  such  as  suit  it  live.” 
There  is  however  nothing  in  the  appeal  to  evolution  more  than 
in  the  first  statement  of  the  objection.  It  is  merely  a  supposed 
more  full  exposition  of  efficient  causes  and  their  law. 

We  may  reply,  in  the  first  place,  that  there  is  nothing  in  the 
idea  of  a  law  of  nature  incompatible  with  final  causes  in  nature : 
for  the  law  is  merely  the  statement  of  a  fact  that  certain  physical 
phenomena  occur  in  a  uniform  sequence.  So  Lord  Bacon,  after 
saying  that  too  exclusive  attention  to  final  causes  in  the  investi¬ 
gations  of  physical  science  had  tended  to  a  neglect  of  the  search 
for  the  physical  causes,  adds:  “Not  because  those  final  causes 
are  not  true  and  worthy  to  be  investigated,  being  kept  within 
their  own  province.  .  .  .  For,  keeping  their  precincts  and  bor¬ 
ders,  men  are  extremely  deceived  if  they  think  there  is  any  en- 

1  Cosmic  Philosophy,  vol.  ii.  pp.  396,  397.  Mr.  Fiske  now  finds  teleology  in 
evolution:  The  Idea  of  God,  pp.  158-163. 

2  Generelle  Morphologie  der  Organismen,  vol.  i.  p.  160. 

3  Die  Welt  als  Entwicklung  des  Geistes,  p.  105. 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  NATURE. 


327 


mity  or  repugnancy  at  all  between  them.  For  the  cause  ren¬ 
dered  that  the  hairs  about  the  eyelids  are  for  the  safeguard  of 
the  sight,  doth  not  impugn  the  cause  rendered  that  pilosity  is 
incident  to  orifices  of  moisture.” 1  If  this  law  of  pilosity  had 
been  established  as  an  invariable  sequence  or  law  of  nature,  it  is 
impossible  to  see  in  it  any  conflict  with  the  inference  that,  in 
accordance  with  this  invariable  sequence  in  nature,  the  eyelid 
has  been  intelligently  adjusted  to  the  eye  for  its  protection. 

In  like  manner,  there  is  also  nothing  in  the  efficient  cause  of 
any  effect  inconsistent  with  the  observed  evidence  of  a  final 
cause.  The  argument  of  the  objector,  stripped  of  all  disguises, 
is  that  whatever  is  the  effect  of  a  known  power,  for  that  reason 
cannot  be  an  expression  of  intelligence.  But  a  purpose  is  not 
the  less  a  purpose  after  the  agencies  used  in  accomplishing  it  are 
known.  The  discovery  of  all  the  action  of  the  muscles  and 
nerves  by  which  the  arm  of  a  man  is  moved  does  not  disprove 
the  intelligent  direction  of  them  in  the  motion.  The  discovery 
of  all  the  muscles  and  nerves  in  the  wing  of  a  bird  does  not 
prove  that  the  wing  was  not  made  to  fly  with.  So  far  from  con¬ 
flicting  with  the  inference  of  final  causes,  the  knowledge  of  the 
efficient  cause  and  its  law  of  action  is  always  presupposed  in  the 
argument  from  them.  Physical  causes  account  for  the  motion 
of  matter,  but  not  for  the  revelation  therein  of  rational  truths, 
laws,  ideals  and  ends.  The  principle  on  which  the  argument 
rests  is  not  merely  that  every  beginning  or  change  must  have  a 
cause,  but  also  that  the  cause  must  be  adequate  to  the  effect. 
The  question  is  not  merely,  is  there  a  cause,  but  also  what  sort 
of  a  cause  must  it  be  to  be  adequate  to  the  effect.  The  gist  of 
the  argument  is  that  when  a  force  acting  according  to  a  known 
law  is  so  adjusted  to  other  forces  acting  in  other  invariable 
sequences  that  their  action  in  concert  effects  a  result,  that  ad¬ 
justment  is  evidence  of  intelligence,  either  in  the  causal  agents 
themselves  or  in  some  agency  directing  them.  The  physical 
causes  account  for  the  motion.  What  accounts  for  the  adjust¬ 
ments  and  adaptations,  and  for  the  concerted  action  of  many 
agents,  continued  it  may  be  for  years  and  centuries,  to  effect  a 
complicated  result?  When  you  have  described  every  piece  of 
material  used  in  building  a  house  and  given  the  exact  dimensions 
of  each,  and  have  set  forth  in  foot-pounds  the  exact  expenditure 
of  force  in  every  exertion  of  the  workmen,  you  have  not  ac¬ 
counted  for  the  concert  and  direction  of  all  the  energies  to  the 

1  Advancement  of  Learning,  bk.  ii. 


328 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


construction  of  the  house.  Much  less  have  you  done  anything 
which  contradicts  and  annuls  the  inference  that  it  was  built 
under  the  guidance  of  intelligence,  according  to  an  intelligible 
plan  and  for  a  reasonable  end.  Dr.  Beattie  sowed  flower-seeds 
so  that  on  coming  up  they  revealed  the  initials  of  his  little  boy’s 
name.  And  the  astonished  boy  laughed  him  to  scorn  when  his 
father  asked  him  if  they  did  not  come  so  by  chance.  The  phys¬ 
ical  forces  in  the  plants  and  their  environment  acting  according 
to  their  laws  could  not  account  for  the  arrangement  of  the  plants 
in  letters.  So  these  physical  forces  in  each  plant  do  not  account 
for  the  concert  of  action  of  the  innumerable  molecules  and  cells 
for  weeks  together  in  building  the  plant  according  to  its  type  ; 
and  in  successive  plants  in  successive  generations  on  the  same 
type  through  many  thousands  of  years.  Geoffroy  St.  Hilaire 
insists  that  in  making  out  the  evidence  of  final  causes  we  look 
first  at  the  function  and  then  at  the  organ.  But  we  see  that 
this  is  not  true  ;  for  the  evidence  of  final  causes  presupposes  a 
knowledge  of  the  efficient  cause  and  of  its  laws  of  acting.  It 
has  been  said  of  this  author  that  he  “  carried  the  art  of  shutting 
the  eyes  to  a  high  point  of  philosophical  perfection.”  This  seems 
well  established  when  we  find  him  saying  of  the  argument  from 
final  causes  that  “  in  reasoning  in  this  way  you  would  say  of  a 
man  who  uses  crutches,  that  he  was  originally  designed  to  lose  a 
leg”  in  order  that  he  might  use  crutches.1 

The  appeal  of  the  objector  to  evolution  presents  no  new  prin¬ 
ciple  ;  for  evolution  is  only  a  disclosure  of  the  efficient  cause  and 
its  law  on  a  larger  scale.  It  has  already  been  shown  that  evolu¬ 
tion,  instead  of  nullifying  the  evidence  of  final  causes,  discloses 
it  in  the  universe  as  a  whole  and  attaches  it  to  the  cosmic  devel¬ 
opment  throughout  all  time  and  space.  It  sets  it  before  us  in 
a  grand  cosmic  panorama  in  which  we  see  the  universe  moving 
through  all  time  toward  the  realization  of  an  ideal.  And  thus 
it  only  makes  more  conspicuous  the  fact  that  the  cause  which 
through  unmeasurable  time  has  been  progressively  evolving 
higher  and  higher  orders  of  being  and  conditions  of  existence,  is 
a  cause  adequate  to  the  effect ;  and  therefore  is  not  merely  a 
force  but  a  force  intellectually  and  wisely  directed  either  by  itself 
or  by  a  rational  power  above  it.  And  to  all  who,  with  Spencer 
and  the  agnostics  and  with  scientists  generally,  admit  that  the 
absolute  is  revealed  in  all  the  efficiency  of  the  universe  as  Power, 
the  inference  is  legitimate  and  necessary,  not  merely  that  physical 
1  Principes  de  Pkilosophie  Zoologique,  p.  66. 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  NATURE. 


329 


force  measurable  by  foot-pounds  reveals  everywhere  the  absolute 
as  Power,  but  also  that  the  everywhere  accompanying  order  and 
law,  progressiveness  toward  ideals,  adaptation  and  adjustment  to 
ends,  and  intelligibleness  to  thought  in  the  unity  of  a  scientific 
system,  reveal  the  absolute  as  Reason. 

This  objection,  then,  when  we  come  to  examine  it,  is  found  to 
be  only  the  reiteration  under  scientific  phraseology  of  the  old  and 
obvious  error  that  when  we  find  out  how  a  thing  is  done,  we  can 
no  longer  believe  that  any  intelligence  directed  in  the  doing  of 
it ;  that  as  soon  as  we  understand  the  construction  of  a  steam-en¬ 
gine  we  know  that  no  mind  directed  its  construction  or  guides  its 
action ;  that  in  the  universe,  whatever  the  number  of  agencies 
combined  in  interaction,  whatever  the  intricacy  of  the  combina¬ 
tion  and  the  delicacy  of  the  adjustment,  however  perfect  the  order 
and  harmony  of  all  in  the  unity  of  a  system,  these  very  facts,  be¬ 
cause  they  show  us  how  the  universe  goes  on,  make  it  impossible 
to  believe  that  any  intelligence  directed  in  its  constitution  or 
guides  in  its  ongoing. 

The  foolishness  and  abortiveness  of  this  objection  is  declared 
by  Kant :  44  To  exclude  the  teleological  principle  on  account  of 
the  mechanical  and,  when  the  adaptation  to  an  end  shows  itself 
undeniably  as  a  relation  to  a  cause  of  another  kind,  still  always 
to  insist  on  following  the  mechanism  only,  must  be  seen  by  the 
reason  to  be  a  fantastic  wandering  under  the  lead  of  those  chime¬ 
ras  of  the  brain,  the  powers  of  nature,  which  are  entirely  unthink¬ 
able,  as  really  as  an  exclusively  teleological  explanation,  which 
takes  no  notice  of  the  mechanism  of  nature,  is  regarded  by  the 
reason  as  fanatical.”  1 

Recognizing  the  abortiveness  of  the  objection  from  another 
point  of  view,  Mr.  Huxley  says :  44  The  teleological  and  the  me¬ 
chanical  views  of  nature  are  not  necessarily  mutually  exclusive. 
On  the  contrary,  the  more  purely  a  mechanist  the  speculator  is, 
the  more  firmly  does  he  assume  a  primordial  molecular  arrange¬ 
ment,  of  which  all  the  phenomena  of  the  universe  are  the  conse¬ 
quences  ;  and  the  more  completely  is  he  thereby  at  the  mercy  of 
the  teleologist,  who  can  always  defy  him  to  prove  that  this  pri¬ 
mordial  arrangement  was  not  intended  to  evolve  the  phenomena 
of  the  universe.  On  the  other  hand,  if  the  teleologist  asserts  that 
this,  that  or  the  other  result  of  the  working  of  any  part  of  the 
mechanism  of  the  universe  is  its  purpose  and  final  cause,  the 

1  Kritik  der  Urtheilskraft  (Ausg.  von  Hartenstein),  §  78,  Werke,  vol.  vii. 
p.  290. 


330 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


mechanist  can  always  inquire  how  he  knows  that  it  is  more  than 
an  unessential  incident,  the  mere  ticking  of  the  clock,  which  he 
mistakes  for  its  function.”  1  He  seems  to  mean  that  teleology  in 
its  broader  application  to  the  universe  is  confirmed  by  evolution 
and  cannot  be  disproved ;  and  that  all  which  remains  possible  for 
its  opponent  to  do  is  to  criticise  its  application  to  details  and  in¬ 
quire  whether  the  teleologist  does  not  sometimes  mistake  an  inci¬ 
dental  result,  like  the  ticking  of  a  clock,  for  the  essential  design 
or  end  of  the  arrangement.  And  to  this  the  teleologist  will  not 
object.  As  has  . already  been  said,  teleology  has  been  brought 
into  discredit  by  errors  of  this  sort  in  applying  it  to  trivial  details. 
But  occasional  mistakes  in  applying  the  teleological  argument  to 
details  do  not  invalidate  the  principle  on  which  it  rests  nor  make 
all  applications  of  it  worthless.  Mr.  Darwin  himself  says  :  “  To 
suppose  that  the  e}m,  with  all  its  inimitable  contrivances  for  ad¬ 
justing  the  focus  to  different  distances,  for  admitting  different 
amounts  of  light  and  for  the  correction  of  spherical  and  achro¬ 
matic  aberration,  could  have  been  formed  by  natural  selection, 
seems,  I  freely  confess,  absurd  in  the  highest  possible  degree.” 
Why  then  does  he  not  recognize  in  the  evolution  a  directing  in¬ 
telligence?  By  so  doing  he  would  remove  what  he  himself  sees 
to  be  absurd,  supply  to  the  evolution  that  superior  power  and 
intelligence  which  at  every  stage  in  its  progress  it  imperatively 
demands  in  order  to  escape  absurdity,  and  so  would  make  the 
theory  of  evolution  richer  and  more  fruitful. 

From  still  another  point  of  view  Hartmann  is  right  in  saying 
that  the  efficient  cause  and  the  final  are  but  different  aspects  of 
the  same  thing,  “  according  as  thought  logically  reproduces  the 
process  from  later  to  earlier  or  from  earlier  to  later.  The  con¬ 
ditionedness  of  the  later  by  the  earlier  is  called  causality ;  that 
of  the  earlier  by  the  later  is  called  finality.  From  the  point  of 
causality  the  teleological  order  of  the  world  is  the  product  of  the 
order  of  the  world  by  efficient  causes  under  natural  law;  from 
that  of  finality,  the  physical  causes  and  laws  are  means  to  the 
end.”  The  one  appears  to  exclude  the  other  only  so  long  as  their 
common  genetic  ground  in  reason  energizing  is  overlooked.  “  So 
soon  as  the  advocates  of  the  mechanical  view  of  the  world  are 
brought  to  the  concession  that  the  regular  order  of  nature  is  the 
expression  of  an  immanent  reason  in  the  world,  they  can  as  little 
withhold  the  admission  that  from  it  must  result  a  teleological 
order  of  the  world,  as  the  latter  can  deny  that  the  order  of  the 

1  Critiques  and  Addresses,  p.  307. 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  NATURE. 


331 


world  by  natural  laws  is  its  logically  required  means,  so  soon 
as  they  are  brought  to  see  in  the  teleological  world-order,  not  a 
mass  of  divine  arbitrary  acts,  but  a  result  of  the  eternal  reason 
of  God.”  1 

In  respect  to  evolution,  another  point  to  be  noticed  is,  that,  as 
scientists  infer,  through  the  escape  of  heat  all  the  forces  in  our 
universe  must  eventually  come  into  equilibrium  and  all  life  and 
motion  will  cease.  Once  in  this  equilibrium  there  is  no  power 
within  it  which  can  renew  its  action.  It  must  remain  a  motion¬ 
less  solid  mass  forever.  Here  are  two  points  bearing  on  the  ques¬ 
tion  now  under  consideration.  One  is  that  nobody  can  believe 
it.  As  the  authors  of  the  Unseen  Universe  say  :  u  That  this  vast 
store  of  high-class  energy  should  be  doing  nothing  but  traveling 
outwards  in  space  at  the  rate  of  188,000  miles  per  second  is 
hardly  conceivable,  especially  when  the  result  of  it  is  the  inevita¬ 
ble  destruction  of  the  visible  universe.”  2  And  it  is  impossible 
to  believe  that  all  action  in  the  visible  universe  is  to  end,  and  the 
universe  so  full  of  energy  is  to  become  a  lifeless,  motionless  mass 
and  remain  so  forever.  But  all  which  makes  it  impossible  to  be« 
lieve  it  is  the  principle  of  final  causes.  We  cannot  think  that  all 
the  energy  expended  in  the  universe  has  been  expended  only 
to  accomplish  so  meaningless  and  unworthy  an  end.  The  other 
thought  is  that  nothing  can  prevent  this  conclusion  but  the  recog¬ 
nition  of  the  presence  and  action  in  the  universe  of  the  imma¬ 
nent  and  inexhaustible  power  and  wisdom  of  God. 

Thus  in  every  line  of  investigation  science  presently  comes  face 
to  face  with  mysteries  which  it  cannot  illuminate,  problems  which 
/t  cannot  solve  and  difficulties  which  it  cannot  remove.  These 
mysteries  are  understood  and  the  difficulties  removed  only  when 
the  absolute  Reason  is  recognized  as  immanent  in  the  universe 
and  energizing  with  inexhaustible  power  for  rational  ends.  Sci¬ 
ence  in  its  difficulties,  not  less  than  faith,  has  occasion  to  lift  up 
its  hands  unto  God.  Science,  not  less  than  faith,  has  occasion  to 
cry  :  “  Whither  shall  I  go  from  thy  Spirit  ?  Whither  shall  I  flee 
from  thy  presence  ?  ” 

Hume  objects  that,  whatever  the  order  and  law,  the  adapta¬ 
tions  and  adjustments  observed  in  nature,  we  cannot  infer  from 
them  a  directing  mind  in  the  author  of  nature,  because  we  have 
had  no  experience  in  world-building.  On  the  contrary,  from  the 

1  Hartmann,  Die  Religion  des  Geistes,  part  B,  pp.  129,  130. 

2  Unseen  Universe,  p.  156. 


332 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


products  of  human  art  we  can  infer  that  a  man  was  the  maker, 
because  we  know  the  products  of  human  art  by  experience.1 

The  answer  is  that  Hume  has  misapprehended  the  real  basis 
of  the  inference.  He  supposes  the  inference  to  be  the  same  in 
kind  with  that  of  the  geologist  who  infers  the  past  existence  of 
certain  kinds  of  animals  from  coprolites ;  not  from  any  marks  of 
design  in  these  fossils,  but  simply  because  he  recognizes  them  as 
objects  already  familiar  to  him.  So,  as  Hume  would  reason,  if 
one  thrown  by  shipwreck  on  an  unknown  island  finds  a  human 
footprint,  or  a  circle  with  radius  and  tangent  imprinted  in  the 
sand,  or  a  watch,  he  will  infer  that  men  have  been  there,  not  from 
the  evidence  of  intelligence  in  these  constructions,  but  solely  be¬ 
cause  he  is  already  familiar  with  these  things  as  made  by  man. 
But  he  cannot  infer  an  intelligent  author  from  the  contrivances 
and  adaptations  of  nature,  because  he  has  not  been  familiar  with 
them  in  his  experience  as  made  under  intelligent  direction.  He 
supposes  the  argument  to  be  merely  an  analogy. 

But  this  is  not  the  ground  of  the  inference  from  the  law,  order, 
progressiveness  and  final  causes  in  nature.  The  tlieistic  inference 
is  from  the  peculiarity  of  an  observed  effect  to  the  peculiarity  of 
the  cause  adequate  to  produce  it.  It  is  similar  to  the  reasoning 
by  the  Newtonian  induction  to  discover  what  the  cause  is  from 
the  observed  effect.  Through  our  familiarity  with  the  products 
of  intelligently  directed  power  in  ourselves  and  others  we  recog¬ 
nize  their  characteristics  wherever  we  see  them.  When  we  see 
arrangements  in  nature  having  these  characteristics,  we  legiti¬ 
mately  infer  that  they  are  products  of  power  directed  by  mind. 
And  the  inference  is  as  legitimate  as  that  from  any  induction. 
And  it  is  not  true  even  of  artificial  products  that  our  infer¬ 
ence  of  the  intelligence  of  the  maker  is  limited  to  constructions 
with  which  we  have  been  familiar  in  experience.  If  the  ship¬ 
wrecked  mariner  finds  on  the  island  a  music-box,  a  quadrant 
or  any  mechanical  contrivance  which  he  has  never  seen,  he  will 
know  it  as  a  product  of  human  workmanship  from  the  evidences 
of  mind  in  it.  From  stone  implements,  the  making  of  which  we 
have  never  observed  and  of  some  of  which  the  use  can  only  be 
conjectured,  we  infer  the  existence  of  man,  and  add  copious  in¬ 
ferences  as  to  his  habits  and  the  history  of  his  development. 

In  like  manner  from  the  evidence  of  mind  in  nature,  we  infer 
intelligence  in  the  author  of  nature.  Accordingly  J.  S.  Mill  af¬ 
firms  :  “  The  argument  is  not  one  of  mere  analog}^.  As  mere 
1  Natural  Religion,  part  ii. ;  Philosophical  Works,  vol.  ii.  p.  434. 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  NATURE. 


333 


analogy  it  has  its  weight,  but  it  is  more  than  analogy.  It  sur¬ 
passes  analogy  exactly  as  induction  surpasses  it.  It  is  an  induc¬ 
tive  argument.”  1 

If  the  objector  denies  that  the  universe  is  accounted  for  as  the 
revelation  of  absolute  Reason,  it  devolves  on  him  to  declare  how 
he  will  account  for  it.  But  by  his  declaration  that  it  is  not  ac¬ 
counted  for  as  a  revelation  of  reason,  he  is  shut  out  from  profess¬ 
ing  or  attempting  to  give  any  reasonable  account  of  it.  He  may 
fall  back  on  complete  positivism,  or  on  Spencerian  agnosticism, 
or  on  pantheistic  or  materialistic  monism.  But  whatever  his  the¬ 
ory  may  be,  it  explicitly  excludes  reason.  We  can  but  wonder 
that  intelligent  persons  readily  accept  almost  anything  as  the  ul¬ 
timate  ground  of  the  universe,  provided  it  excludes  reason  ;  are 
satisfied  with  any  explanation  and  earnestly  defend  it,  provided 
it  leaves  out  that  which  alone  can  make  the  explanation  reason¬ 
able.  The  inadequacy  of  the  above-mentioned  theories  of  the 
universe  has  already  been  exposed.  There  remain  two  others 
which  may  receive  a  passing  notice. 

The  objector  may  say  that  the  universe  is  accounted  for  by  the 
fortuitous  concurrence  of  atoms.  This  was  the  theory  of  Epicu¬ 
rus  and  Lucretius.  The  latter,  after  setting  forth  the  Epicurean 
theory,  adds  :  “  If  you  keep  these  things  in  mind,  nature  is  seen, 
free  immediately  and  rid  of  her  haughty  lords,  to  do  all  things 
spontaneously  of  herself  without  the  gods.”  2  Mr.  Hume  says  of 
this  theory  :  “  This  is  commonly,  and  I  believe  justly,  esteemed 
the  most  absurd  system  that  has  yet  been  proposed  ;  yet  I  know 
not  whether,  with  a  few  alterations,  it  might  not  be  brought  to 
bear  a  faint  probability.”  3  In  the  present  revival  of  old  atomic 
theories  this  way  of  accounting  for  the  universe  has  reappeared. 
It  is  said  that  chance  can  do  any  thing  if  you  only  give  it  chances 
enough ;  and  that  with  an  infinite  number  of  throws  from  a  dice- 
box  one  could  throw  the  Greek  alphabet  into  the  Iliad. 

But  chance  is  not  a  power  and  cannot  do  any  thing.  Chance 
and  necessity  are  defined  alike  as  describing  the  action  of  a  power 
unregulated  by  reason.  Chance  is  necessity  to  that  which  is 
effected  by  it.  But  neither  chance  nor  necessity  does  any  thing 
or  accounts  for  any  thing.  In  each  case  it  is  the  power,  sup¬ 
posed  to  act  without  the  guidance  of  intelligence,  which  does 
what  is  done.  The  supposition  is  also  absurd  ;  for  since  the 

1  Three  Essays  on  Religion,  pp.  170,  168. 

2  De  Rerum  Natura,  lib.  ii.  1090-1093. 

8  Natural  Religion,  part  viii.;  Phil.  Works,  vol.  ii.  p.  481. 


334 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


throws  are  entirely  unregulated  by  reason,  there  may  be  any 
number  of  repetitions  of  the  same  “  throw,”  and  any  inference 
is  just  as  valid  as  any  other. 

But  we  may  dismiss  these  idle  speculations  about  the  infinite. 
The  decisive  answer  is  that  the  objector  assumes  that  the  uni¬ 
verse  once  existed  entirely  unregulated  b}r  laws  of  nature  or  by 
principles  of  reason.  He  assumes  a  chaos  in  which  there  were 
not  only  no  regularity  or  uniformity  of  sequence,  no  fixed  con¬ 
nection  between  any  event  and  any  antecedent  or  consequent, 
but,  in  a  confusion  entirely  unregulated  by  rational  intelligence 
and  entirely  given  up  to  chance,  it  might  happen  that  there 
should  be  motion  without  any  cause  or  any  effect,  two  straight 
lines  might  sometimes  happen  to  inclose  a  space,  any  absurdity 
might  be  real  and  one  thing  would  be  just  as  possible  and  just  as 
probable  as  another.  Such  a  chaos  is  contradictory  to  reason  and 
altogether  absurd ;  it  destroys  the  foundation  of  all  science ;  it  is 
entirely  unintelligible  to  human  thought.  And  if  the  universe 
has  come  out  of  such  a  chaos  into  its  present  systematic  order, 
the  transition  brings  back  all  the  evidence  of  the  existence  of 
God  which  is  set  forth  in  the  physico-theological  argument. 

In  fact  the  objector  assumes  that  these  atoms  are  numbered 
and  adapted  to  one  another  and  to  the  coming  arrangements  of 
the  system  ;  so  that  when  those  adapted  to  each  other  come  to¬ 
gether  they  cohere  and  abide,  while  those  not  adapted,  if  they 
come  together,  do  not  cohere.  Mr.  Tyndall,  accepting  this  ex¬ 
planation  of  the  universe,  says  :  “  The  interaction  of  the  atoms 
throughout  all  time  made  all  manner  of  combinations  possible. 
Of  these  only  the  fit  ones  persisted  while  the  unfit  ones  disap¬ 
peared.”  1  So  in  throwing  the  letters  of  the  Iliad,  there  is  the 
presupposition  of  the  letters  of  the  Greek  alphabet,  of  exactly  as 
many  of  each  as  the  poem  contains,  and  of  the  persistence  of  the 
letters  in  combination  when  they  happen  to  make  a  word  and 
their  separation  when  they  do  not.  Here  again  all  the  evidences 
of  adaptation,  adjustment  and  design  come  back  and  prove  a  di¬ 
recting  mind  under  whose  guidance  all  the  elements  have  been 
formed  and  adjusted  for  the  purpose  which  they  are  to  accom¬ 
plish  in  the  whole. 

When  challenged  to  account  for  the  universe  on  the  supposi¬ 
tion  that  the  evidence  of  mind  in  nature  does  not  reveal  the  per¬ 
sonal  God,  the  objector  may  recur  to  the  position  of  Hartmann 
or  Schopenhauer,  that  the  universe  is  grounded  in  spirit,  but  im« 

1  Address  before  the  British  Association  at  Belfast. 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  NATURE. 


335 


personal  and  unconscious.  So  Noire  says  :  “  All  for  an  end  is 
the  motto  of  nature,  but  only  in  unconsciousness.  .  .  .  Conscious 
ends  begin  only  from  the  beginning  of  life.”  Similar  views  are 
held  by  Biedermann,  Pfleiderer  and  some  other  theologians.1 

The  untenableness  of  their  position  has  already  been  exposed 
in  the  discussion  of  the  absolute  Being  and  Theism.  It  was 
shown  that  their  error  is  in  assuming  that  limitation  and  condi- 
tionateness  are  of  the  essence  of  personality,  but  not  of  the  es¬ 
sence  of  spirit.  But  since  they  acknowledge  that  the  absolute 
is  Spirit  and  thus  assume  unconscious  reason  or  will  in  the  abso¬ 
lute,  they  cannot  place  the  limitation  of  personality  in  these. 
They  must  therefore  suppose  it  to  be  either  in  the  person's  con¬ 
sciousness  or  in  his  individuality  and  identity.  It  cannot  be  in 
the  consciousness  as  distinctive  of  a  person  ;  for  consciousness  be¬ 
longs  to  mind,  will,  spirit,  in  the  same  sense  in  which  it  belongs 
to  a  person.  A  spirit  or  person  is  intelligent.  But  thought, 
knowledge,  intelligence  involve  consciousness.  Take  away  the 
consciousness  and  you  take  away  the  thought,  the  knowledge, 
the  intelligence.  Unconscious  knowledge  is  no  knowledge.  And 
this  remains  true  whether  you  call  the  subject  of  the  knowledge 
spirit  or  will  or  person.  And  a  being  without  thought,  knowl¬ 
edge  or  intelligence,  a  being  therefore  inferior  to  conscious  per¬ 
sonal  beings  which  it  is  supposed  to  create,  is  in  its  essence  lim¬ 
ited,  conditioned,  imperfect.  Consciousness  therefore  cannot  in¬ 
volve  limitation.  The  conscious  is  superior  to  the  unconscious. 
The  absolute  is  said  to  awake  to  consciousness  in  man.  Man  then 
is  superior  to  the  absolute  Being. 

To  this  it  must  be  added  that  such  an  unconscious  potentiality 
of  intelligence  does  not  account  for  the  universe.  Hartmann 
points  out  with  remarkable  clearness  and  force  the  evidences  in 
the  universe  of  the  presence  and  direction  of  mind.  All  the  writ¬ 
ers  of  this  class  insist  on  them.  But  these  evidences  reveal  in¬ 
telligence  directing  efficient  power  in  the  ordering  and  ongoing 
of  the  universe,  not  an  undeveloped,  unconscious  and  unintelli¬ 
gent  potentiality  blindly  moving  in  an  aimless  and  unguided  flow, 
and  coming  at  last  to  consciousness  in  man.  They  contradict 
themselves,  when  recognizing  the  evidences  of  mind  in  the  uni¬ 
verse  they  still  ascribe  it  to  such  an  unconscious  potentiality 
as  its  cause.  They  contradict  themselves  again  when  they  sup- 

1  Biedermann,  Dogmatik,  §§  715-717,  pp.  638-647;  Pfleiderer,  Religions- 
philosopkie,  pp.  418-421;  Noire,  Die  Welt  als  Entwicklung  des  Geistes,  pp. 

110,  111. 


336 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


pose  man,  the  highest  product  of  the  development,  to  be  the  crea¬ 
ture  of  this  unconscious  potentiality  and  to  revere  and  worship 
it  as  God.  And  Strauss  emphasizes  the  contradiction  by  repre¬ 
senting  the  spirit  of  man  as  having  ordered  and  directed  all  the 
arrangements  and  systems  of  the  universe  in  his  previous  state 
of  existence  as  the  unconscious  potentiality  of  intelligence  in  na¬ 
ture  ;  and  his  scientific  discovery  of  the  same  is  merely  his  awak¬ 
ening  remembrance  of  how  he  himself  had  ordered  it  at  first. 
And  this  brings  in  another  contradiction,  that  a  man  remembers 
that  of  which  he  had  never  had  any  consciousness.1 

Thus  the  active  wisdom  apparent  in  nature  and  recognized 
by  these  writers  cannot  be  accounted  for  by  unconscious  imper¬ 
sonal  spirit.  This  in  reality  is  only  the  blind  order  of  nature 
designated  by  the  name  of  spirit  and  itself  requires  to  be  ac¬ 
counted  for.  It  is  unconscious  reason  only  in  the  sense  in 
which  a  circle  drawn  on  a  blackboard  is  so.  The  circle  is  rea¬ 
sonable  in  the  sense  that  at  every  point  it  reveals  reason  and  is 
an  expression  of  thought.  But  the  circle  does  not  account  for 
itself,  nor  is  it  accounted  for  by  the  blackboard  and  the  chalk. 
It  compels  our  thought  to  pass  behind  all  these  to  the  guiding 
mind  that  directed  its  construction  according  to  a  law  and  in  the 
expression  of  an  archetypal  idea.  So  the  wisdom  revealed  in 
nature  carries  us  behind  itself  and  the  immediate  agencies  of 
nature  to  an  intelligent  and  therefore  conscious  spirit  energizing 
in  nature.  Spinoza  says  that  thought  is  an  attribute  of  the  ab¬ 
solute  substance ;  but  he  explains  that  it  is  thought  which  has 
no  likeness  whatever  to  any  thought  or  intelligence  known  to 
man.  It  is  then  a  word  without  meaning.  So  when  we  are 
told  that  the  Absolute  is  unconscious  spirit  or  will  or  intellect, 
these  assertions  denote  spirit,  will,  intellect  which  have  no  like¬ 
ness  to  any  spirit,  will  or  intellect  known  to  us  ;  they  are  there¬ 
fore  entirely  indeterminate  and  void  of  meaning.  Therefore  it 
is  only  in  the  use  of  meaningless  words  that  they  who  say  that 
the  universe  is  grounded  in  unconscious  and  impersonal  reason 
make  a  seeming,  but  not  real,  advance  beyond  agnostics  who 
say  the  absolute  is  the  Unknowable,  or  pantheists  who  say  it 
is  pure  being  which  is  equal  to  zero,  or  even  materialists  who 
say  that  the  universe  is  the  manifestation  only  of  eternal  matter 
and  force.  The  universe  is  grounded  either  in  conscious  per¬ 
sonal  reason  or  else  not  in  reason  at  all,  but  in  the  irrational. 

It  is  thus  evident  that  consciousness  would  be  no  limitation  of 
the  absolute  Reason  or  Spirit. 

1  Glaiihenslehre.  vol.  i.  p.  351. 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  NATURE. 


337 


It  may  now  be  urged  that  a  person  is  limited  by  his  individ¬ 
uality  and  identity ;  and  that  therefore,  the  absolute,  if  personal, 
would  be  limited.  But  these  are  equally  essential  in  the  idea  of 
a  spirit  or  will.  A  spirit  or  will  must  be  an  Ego,  an  indivisible 
one.  And  individuality,  in  its  positive  and  proper  meaning  of 
indivisible,  is  essential  in  the  idea  of  the  absolute  Being.  The 
absolute  Being  is  one  and  indivisible.  It  cannot  be  divided  ; 
there  cannot  be  two.  The  absolute  one  must  also  be  eternally 
identical.  Any  change  into  another,  any  ceasing  to  be  the  same 
demonstrates  that  it  is  not  the  absolute  Being.  But  this  is  pre¬ 
cisely  what  is  meant  by  individuality  and  identity.  Individuality 
means  indivisibility.  An  individual  is  a  one  that,  so  long  as  it 
exists,  is  indivisible  and  the  same.  This  is  of  the  essence  of 
personality,  and  equally  of  the  idea  of  absolute  being.  In  this 
respect  also  personality  is  not  contradictory  to  the  idea  of  the 
absolute. 

It  follows  that  the  whole  evolution  of  the  unconscious  is  in 
necessity  and  not  in  freedom,  and  therefore  affords  no  basis  for 
morals.  And  because  communion  with  the  unconscious  is  im¬ 
possible  and  it  cannot  be  the  object  of  trust,  love,  worship  and 
obedience,  it  gives  no  basis  for  religion. 

We  welcome  the  testimony  of  these  advocates  of  the  uncon¬ 
scious  that  they  find  the  universe  pervaded  by  reason,  and  the 
multiplied  evidences  of  it  which  they  present ;  but  we  insist 
that  these  prove  that  the  universe  is  grounded  in  conscious,  per¬ 
sonal  reason. 

God  is  the  one  only  unconditioned,  self-existent  person.  Man 
is  in  the  image  of  God  so  far  as  he  is  one  indivisible  being  per¬ 
sisting  in  identity  and  endowed  with  reason,  free  will  and  the 
susceptibility  to  rational  and  spiritual  motives.  But  he  is  a 
person  conditioned,  limited  and  dependent.  Neither  condition¬ 
edness  nor  unconditionedness  is  of  the  essence  of  personality. 
In  this,  personality  is  analogous  to  power  and  being.  Each  of 
these  may  be  conditioned  or  unconditioned  without  losing  its 
essence  as  power  or  being.  Personality  in  man  is  “  but  a  pale 
iopy  ”  1  of  personality  in  God,  only  in  the  sense  that  it  is  finite, 
conditioned  and  dependent,  not  in  the  sense  that  it  is  different  in 
its  positive  essence.  As  Lotze  himself  explains,  “  the  finiteness 
of  the  finite  is  not  a  producing  condition  of  this  personalitjq  but 
a  limit  and  hindrance  of  its  development.” 

This  theory  of  the  unconscious  may  be  resorted  to  in  order, 

1  Lotze,  Mikrokosmus,  bk.  ix.  chap.  iv.  §  5,  xii. 

22 


338 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


while  retaining  the  idea  of  the  absolute  as  Reason  or  Spirit,  to 
escape  the  difficulty  that  if  God  is  conscious  while  immanent  and 
energizing  in  nature,  it  implies  that  the  fall  of  every  rain-drop, 
the  dashing  of  every  wave,  the  motion  of  every  molecule  are 
each  effected  by  an  immediate  and  distinct  volition  of  God.  But 
in  escaping  this  difficulty  the  theory  practically  abandons  the 
rationality  and  personality  of  God  and  reduces  him  to  blind  un¬ 
conscious  nature  moving  in  necessity. 

We  might  further  reply  to  the  objection  in  this  form,  that  we 
do  not  know  the  modes  in  which  God  acts  and  may  leave  the 
problem  among  the  mysteries  of  the  absolute  Being  which  the 
finite  mind  cannot  penetrate. 

But  theism  has  another  answer.  Theism  teaches  that  the 
finite  universe  has  real  though  dependent  being,  and  that  God 
progressively  realizes  his  archetypal  idea  by  energizing  on  and 
through  the  finite  beings  already  existing.  It  recognizes  real 
powers  of  nature  acting  in  necessity  according  to  the  law  of  their 
being,  and  real  powers  of  persons  acting  in  freedom.  Hence 
theism  does  not  imply  that  every  motion  and  change  is  caused 
by  an  immediate  volition  of  God.  It  teaches  that,  though  we 
cannot  know  just  how  the  divine  infuses  itself  continually  into 
the  universe,  directing  its  forces  and  progressively  developing  it 
to  higher  and  higher  forms,  yet  we  know  that  God’s  action  on 
and  through  everything  is  accordant  with  the  constitution  and 
laws  of  its  being ;  and  that  he  respects  the  free  will  of  man  and 
secures  to  his  personality  all  its  rights. 

There  may  be  in  man  the  spontaneity  of  genius  and  power, 
of  habit  and  character,  of  enthusiasm  and  love,  which  seems  to 
lift  him  above  the  consciousness  of  his  actions.  In  such  seem¬ 
ingly  unconscious  spontaneity  our  highest  energy  is  put  forth ; 
in  acts  of  seeming  self-forgetfulness  and  self-abandonment  our 
powers  are  exerted  in  their  fullest  tension  and  concentration.  Is 
there  here  a  glimpse  of  an  analogy  to  what  is  immeasurably 
above  it,  the  unobstructed  spontaneity  and  intensity  of  God’s 
energy  working  continuously  and  without  effort  from  the  fulness 
of  his  wisdom,  love  and  power  ? 

There  are  facts  in  our  own  experience  sometimes  spoken  of 
as  unconscious  mental  action.  Thoughts,  lines  of  reasoning,  com 
elusions,  determinations  spring  into  consciousness  which  seem  to 
have  been  elaborated  in  unconsciousness.  There  are  depths  and 
heights  in  our  own  spiritual  being  which  our  consciousness  can¬ 
not  fathom.  How  much  more  which  we  cannot  comprehend 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  NATURE. 


339 


must  there  be  in  God,  the  eternal  Spirit.  No  finite  mind  can 
ever  fathom  the  full  significance  of  those  great  words :  By  the 
word  of  the  Lord  were  the  heavens  made ;  he  spake  and  it  was 
done.  And  in  all  his  action  immanent  and  energizing  in  the  uni¬ 
verse  and  acting  on  and  in  the  human  spirit,  while  he  reveals 
himself  and  we  know  him,  he  also  reveals  himself  as  the  un¬ 
known.  It  is  with  all  his  perfections  as  Paul  says  it  is  with 
his  love,  they  are  known  and  yet  unknown ;  44  that  ye  may  be 
strong  to  apprehend  what  is  the  breadth  and  length  and  height 
and  depth,  and  to  know  the  love  of  Christ  which  passeth  knowl¬ 
edge.” 

From  this  discussion  of  the  objections  the  necessary  conclusion 
is  that  they  fail  to  break  down  the  evidence  in  nature  of  a  direct¬ 
ing  and  intelligent  power ;  they  leave  unimpaired  the  validity  of 
the  inference,  from  the  scientific  intelligibleness  of  nature  in  the 
unity  of  a  plan  or  system,  from  its  order  under  law,  the  concerted 
and  progressive  action  of  its  powers  realizing  ideals  and  its  sub¬ 
ordination  to  the  uses  and  ends  of  sentient  and  preeminently  of 
spiritual  beings  and  a  spiritual  system,  that  it  reveals  the  abso¬ 
lute  Being,  already  known  to  be  manifested  in  nature  as  power, 
as  the  absolute  Reason  energizing  in  the  realization  of  its  arche¬ 
typal  thought. 

Dr.  Bushnell  illustrates  our  knowledge  of  God  through  nature 
by  the  supposition  of  our  being  inclosed  in  a  succession  of  con¬ 
centric  hollow  spheres,  through  which  we  indistinctly  hear  the 
ringing  of  strokes  on  the  outmost  one.  Cicero  has  the  conception 
of  God  as  a  sphere  inclosing  all  the  nature-gods :  44  Summus  ipse 
Deus  arcens  et  continens  ceteros.” 

This  a  young  poet  has  happily  expressed  :  — 

“  The  glowing  map  of  night  reveals 
Its  circling  orbs  upon  their  way ; 

The  world  is  turning;  watch  and  pray; 

Hear  music  in  the  mighty  wheels. 

“  Let  faith,  fore-dreaming  of  the  goal 
That  summons  all  the  flying  years, 

Hear,  round  the  vast  mysterious  spheres, 

The  outmost  one  forever  roll, 

“  The  God-sphere  holding  each  in  place; 

So  that  the  song  rolls,  and  a  jar 
In  earth  or  the  remotest  star 
Can  lend  no  discord,  but  a  grace. 


340 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


“  To  Him  who  marks  the  sparrow’s  fall 
Nothing  is  great,  or  small,  or  strange; 

Death  has  its  hour  and  life  its  change, 

And  runs  the  love  of  God  through  all. 

“Help  us,  0  Lord,  to  bear  thy  love; 

Thy  love  is  great;  bend  thou  our  will 
To  thy  own  law  that  guides  us  still, 

And  guides  the  wandering  lights  above.”  —  Samuel  V.  Cole, 


CHAPTER  XIII. 


GOD  REVEALED  AS  PERSONAL  SPIRIT  IN  THE  CONSTI¬ 
TUTION  AND  HISTORY  OF  MAN. 

We  now  proceed  from  the  physical  system  to  the  spiritual,  to 
ascertain  what  additional  evidence  that  the  absolute  Being  is  the 
personal  God  may  be  found  in  the  constitution  and  history  of 
man. 

I.  God  revealed  as  personal  spirit  in  the  existence 
OF  PERSONAL  BEINGS.  —  From  the  existence  of  personal  beings 
we  rightly  infer  that  the  absolute  Being  must  be  a  rational  and 
personal  being,  on  the  principle  that  the  cause  must  be  adequate 
to  the  effect. 

Man  knows  himself  and  his  fellow- men  as  personal  beings. 
In  discussing  man’s  capacity  to  know  God  it  was  shown  that 
personality  in  its  essence  is  supernatural.  If  the  line  dividing 
nature  from  the  supernatural  runs  between  finite  beings  and 
God,  as  many  theologians  assume,  then  man  is  shut  up  in  the 
physical  or  natural  and  excluded  from  any  participation  in  the 
spiritual  or  supernatural,  and  from  all  knowledge  of  God  or  of 
any  spiritual  or  supernatural  reality.  But  theism  does  not  admit 
any  such  rift  between  God  and  the  universe,  any  such  gulf  which 
thought  itself  cannot  pass  over  to  find  God.  It  is  of  the  essence 
of  theism  that  it  declares  the  union  and  communion  of  God  and 
man.  The  philosophical  basis  of  this  is  the  fact  that  the  line  of 
distinction  between  nature  and  the  supernatural  is  the  line  of 
distinction  between  rational  and  free  personal  beings  and  the 
irrational  and  impersonal.  Thus  man  is  at  once  participant  in 
nature  and  the  supernatural  and  has  in  experience  contents  for 
the  knowledge  of  both.1  He  is  the  bond  of  union  between  the 
natural  and  the  supernatural.  In  him  the  law  of  continuity 
reaches  unbroken  from  the  spiritual  into  the  physical,  and  they 
are  knit  together  in  one  all-comprehending  rational  system.  The 
consciousness  of  man  is  “  the  mirror  of  the  universe,”  because  in 
it  he  sees  both  the  physical  and  the  spiritual  in  unity. 

1  Phil.  Basis  of  Theism,  chap.  xvi.  pp.  408,411. 


342 


THE  SELF-RE YELATION  OF  GOD. 


If  personal  beings  exist,  then  the  absolute  Being  is  God,  the 
personal  Spirit.  The  cause  must  be  adequate  to  the  effect.  Ra¬ 
tional  free  persons  cannot  be  accounted  for  as  created  or  brought 
into  existence  by  irrational  and  insensate  physical  forces.  Athe¬ 
ism,  therefore,  must  assume  either  explicitly  or  implicitly  that  no 
rational  free  agent  or  personal  being  exists.  The  question  with 
the  atheist  is  not  so  much,  Does  the  personal  God  exist,  as,  Does 
any  personal  being  exist  ?  Is  man  a  rational  free  agent  ? 

But  it  is  beyond  reasonable  doubt  that  personal  beings  do  ex¬ 
ist.  All  knowledge  implies  a  subject  knowing,  an  object  known 
and  the  knowledge.  The  knowledge  of  myself  knowing  is  essen¬ 
tial  to  knowledge  of  the  object  known.  If  I  do  not  know  myself 
as  existing,  I  do  not  know  anything ;  all  knowledge  becomes  im¬ 
possible.  All  physical  science  rests  on  the  immense  assumption 
that  the  physical  world  of  matter  and  force  exists  and  is  known. 
But  if  the  scientist  knows  that  the  physical  world  exists,  he 
equally  knows  that  he  himself  exists  as  a  rational  being  who 
knows  it  and  describes  it  in  science. 

And  man’s  knowledge  of  his  own  individuality  and  identity,  of 
his  own  rationality  and  free  will  is  as  certain  as  his  knowledge  of 
his  own  existence.  Man  therefore  in  knowing  himself  knows  the 
personal,  the  spiritual,  the  supernatural.  He  finds  in  man  that 
which  transcends  the  physical  and  the  impersonal ;  while  in  the 
physical  world  he  is  also  above  it. 

In  explaining  mental  phenomena  all  proposed  substitutes  for 
the  personal  self  or  ego  have  failed.  Mr.  J.  S.  Mill  defines  the 
mind  as  a  series  of  sensations  and  feelings.  But  he  himself  says 
that  this  involves  the  paradox  that  a  series  of  feelings  is  aware  of 
itself  as  past  and  future  and  as  continuing  through  years  in  the 
unify  and  identity  of  a  series.1  But  it  is  more  than  a  paradox ; 
it  is  an  absurdity ;  or,  if  not,  it  is  an  agglutination  of  words,  hid¬ 
ing  the  absence  of  intelligible  meaning,  worthy  of  a  mediaeval 
scholastic.  And  there  is  the  additional  absurdity  of  affirming  a 
series  of  feelings  with  no  being  that  is  the  subject  of  them.  Mr. 
Spencer,  inconsistently  with  his  agnostic  realism,  seems  to  accept 
the  same  view.  He  defines  the  ego  as  “  at  each  moment  nothing 
else  than  the  state  of  consciousness,  simple  or  compound,  passing 
at  that  moment.”  2  The  insufficiency  of  this  and  similar  defini¬ 
tions,  the  contradictions  involved  in  them,  and  the  impossibility 
of  explaining  mental  phenomena  without  the  recognition  of  a  per. 
sonal  mind  are  becoming  more  and  more  apparent. 

1  Mill  on  Hamilton,  vol.  i.  pp.  253,  261.  2  Psychology,  vol.  i.  p.  501. 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  MAN. 


343 


And  physical  science  is  more  and  more  making  it  evident  that 
physical  force  cannot  account  for  the  phenomena  of  mind.  Facts 
and  laws  supposed  to  disprove  personality  and  to  resolve  all  its 
manifestations  into  physical  phenomena  are  gradually  being  found 
to  have  no  such  import.  When  the  law  of  the  Persistence  of 
Force  was  announced  it  seemed  to  be  expected  that  it  would  re¬ 
solve  thought  into  a  form  of  motor-force  and  completely  explain 
mental  phenomena  by  physical  processes.  But  this  has  been 
found  to  be  impossible.  Scientists  now  hold  that  mental  pro¬ 
cesses  can  never  be  resolved  into  motion  nor  explained  by  the 
molecular  action  of  the  brain.  The  physical  action  reveals  an 
agency  beyond  itself.1  In  Hume’s  Dialogues  concerning  Natural 
Religion,  Philo  asks:  “What  peculiar  privilege  has  this  little 
agitation  of  the  brain  which  we  call  thought,  that  we  must  make 
it  the  model  of  the  whole  universe  ?  ”  2  To  this  question  physical 
science  now  answers  that  thought  is  something  other  than  the 
agitation  of  the  brain  and  cannot  be  identified  with  it. 

So  also,  when  the  theory  of  evolution  was  propounded,  it  was 
expected  that,  if  proved  true,  it  would  disprove  once  for  all  the 
existence  of  personality  both  in  man  and  God,  and  establish  ma¬ 
terialism  on  a  scientific  basis  and  beyond  all  further  controversy. 
On  the  contrary  it  has  been  found  that  it  presents  new  evidence 
of  the  existence  of  personality,  and  reveals  more  clearly  than  ever 
that  the  recognition  of  the  personality  both  of  man  and  God  is  a 
necessity  of  physical  science  in  order  to  the  intelligibleness  and 
the  comprehension  in  a  rational  system  of  the  facts  which  science 
discovers. 

Mr.  John  Fiske,  the  ablest  expounder  and  defender  of  Spen¬ 
cerian  evolution  in  this  country,  teaches  that  physical  evolution 
issues  in  the  appearance  of  rational  man ;  that  it  can  advance  no 
further,  but  gives  place  to  a  psychical  progress.  “  When  Hu¬ 
manity  began  to  be  evolved  an  entirely  new  chapter  in  the 
history  of  the  universe  was  opened.  Henceforth  the  life  of  the 
nascent  soul  came  to  be  first  in  importance,  and  the  bodily  life 
became  subordinated  to  it.  Henceforth  it  appeared  that,  in  this 
direction  at  least,  the  process  of  zoological  change  had  come  to 
an  end,  and  a  process  of  psychological  change  was  to  take  its 
place.  Henceforth  along  this  supreme  line  of  generation  there 
was  to  be  no  further  evolution  of  new  species  through  physical 

1  Philosophical  Basis  of  Theism,  pp.  434-454.  Also  the  materialistic  argu¬ 
ment  founded  on  evolution,  pp.  455-536. 

2  Part  ii.  Philosophical  Works,  vol.  ii.  p.  438. 


844 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


variation,  but  through  the  accumulation  of  psychical  variations 
one  particular  species  was  to  be  indefinitely  perfected  and  raised 
to  a  totally  different  plane  from  that  on  which  all  life  had  hith¬ 
erto  existed.  Henceforth,  in  short,  the  dominant  aspect  of  evo¬ 
lution  was  to  be  not  the  genesis  of  species  but  the  progress  of 
civilization.  As  we  thoroughly  grasp  the  meaning  of  all  this,  we 
see  that  upon  the  Darwinian  theory  it  is  impossible  that  any 
creature  zoologically  distinct  from  Man  and  superior  to  him 
should  ever  at  any  future  time  exist  upon  the  earth.  .  .  .  Accord¬ 
ing  to  Darwinism,  the  creation  of  man  is  still  the  goal  toward 
which  Nature  tended  from  the  beginning.  Not  the  production 
of  any  higher  creature,  but  the  perfecting  of  Humanity,  is  to  be 
the  glorious  consummation  of  Nature’s  long  and  tedious  work. 
Thus  we  suddenly  arrive  at  the  conclusion  that  Man  seems  now, 
much  more  clearly  than  ever,  the  chief  among  God’s  creatures. 
...  In  the  deadly  struggle  for  existence  which  has  raged  through¬ 
out  countless  aeons  of  time,  the  whole  creation  has  been  groaning 
and  travailing  together  in  order  to  bring  forth  that  last  consum¬ 
mate  specimen  of  God’s  handiwork,  the  Human  Soul.  .  .  .  The 
materialistic  assumption  that  .  .  .  the  life  of  the  soul  ends  with 
the  life  of  the  body,  is  perhaps  the  most  colossal  instance  of  base¬ 
less  assumption  that  is  known  to  the  history  of  philosophy.  .  .  . 
The  doctrine  of  evolution  does  not  allow  us  to  take  the  atheistic 
view  of  the  position  of  man.  .  .  .  The  Darwinian  theory,  prop¬ 
erly  understood,  replaces  as  much  teleology  as  it  destroys.  From 
the  first  dawning  of  life  we  see  all  things  working  together  to¬ 
ward  one  mighty  goal,  the  evolution  of  the  most  exalted  spiritual 
qualities  which  characterize  Humanity.  .  .  .  The  more  thoroughly 
we  comprehend  that  process  of  evolution  by  which  things  have 
come  to  be  what  they  are,  the  more  we  are  likely  to  feel  that  to 
deny  the  everlasting  persistence  of  the  spiritual  element  in  Man 
is  to  rob  the  whole  process  of  its  meaning.  It  goes  far  toward 
putting  us  to  permanent  intellectual  confusion,  and  I  do  not  see 
that  any  one  has  as  yet  alleged,  or  is  ever  likely  to  allege,  a  suf¬ 
ficient  reason  for  our  accepting  so  dire  an  alternative.  For  my 
own  part,  therefore,  I  believe  in  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  not 
in  the  sense  in  which  I  accept  the  demonstrable  truths  of  science, 
but  as  a  supreme  act  of  faith  in  the  reasonableness  of  God’s  work. 

.  .  .  According  to  Mr.  Spencer,  the  divine  energy  which  is  man¬ 
ifested  throughout  the  knowable  universe  is  the  same  that  wells 
up  in  the  human  consciousness.  Speaking  for  myself,  I  can  see 
no  insuperable  difficulty  in  the  notion  that  at  some  period  in  the 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  MAN. 


345 


evolution  of  Humanity  this  divine  spark  may  have  acquired  suffi¬ 
cient  concentration  and  steadiness  to  survive  the  wreck  of  mate¬ 
rial  forms  and  endure  forever.  Such  a  crowning  wonder  seems 
to  me  no  more  than  the  fit  climax  to  a  creative  work  that  has 
been  ineffably  beautiful  and  marvelous  in  all  its  myriad  stages.”  1 

But  if  rational  and  personal  beings  exist,  the  absolute  Being, 
that  is  the  ultimate  ground  of  the  universe,  must  be  absolute  Rea¬ 
son  as  well  as  absolute  Power.  This  is  a  necessary  inference 
on  the  principle  that  the  cause  must  bq  adequate  to  produce 
the  effect.  Rational  persons  have  powers  of  which  matter,  in 
any  sense  in  which  the  word  is  legitimately  used,  is  destitute. 
It  therefore  cannot  be  their  cause.  The  evolution  of  matter  by 
its  own  forces  in  purely  physical  processes  into  personal  beings 
would  be  an  effect  without  a  cause.  Finite  rational  beings  can 
have  the  ultimate  ground  of  their  existence  only  in  the  abso¬ 
lute  Reason,  the  personal  God  who  knows  all  the  rational  truths, 
the  rational  laws,  the  rational  ideals  of  perfection,  the  rational 
ends  which  are  constituent  in  the  rationality  of  the  personal  be¬ 
ings  whom  he  has  brought  into  existence.  “  He  that  teacheth 
man  knowledge,  shall  not  he  know?”  We  have  found  in  the 
physical  system  evidences  of  a  directing  mind  guiding  the  power 
energizing  in  it  and  indicating  that  the  universe  is  ultimately 
grounded  in  Reason.  Still  more  decisive  and  imperative  is  the 
evidence  of  the  same  in  the  existence  in  the  universe  of  rational 
beings  and  a  rational  and  moral  system.  We  may  reasonably 
expect  that  the  progress  of  thought,  whether  starting  from  the 
psychical  or  the  physical  facts  in  the  universe,  will  issue  in  the 
decisive  and  agreeing  belief  that  psychical  acts  and  processes  can 
be  accounted  for  only  by  referring  them  to  psychical  agents  ; 
that  rational  beings  and  a  rational  system  exist,  which  transcend 
the  physical  and  cannot  be  accounted  for  by  it,  but  which  reveal 
the  absolute  Reason,  energizing  in  it  in  the  expression  of  arche¬ 
typal  truth,  in  accordance  with  eternal  and  rational  laws,  and  in 
the  progressive  realization  of  rational  ideals  and  good. 

II.  God  revealed  as  personal  spirit  in  the  constitu¬ 
tional  religiousness  OF  MAN.  —  God  is  revealed  in  the  reli¬ 
giousness  of  man,  which,  with  the  included  belief  in  a  divinity, 
is  a  common  characteristic  of  humanity,  is  spontaneous,  powerful 
and  persistent,  and  is  thus  found  to  have  root  in  the  common 
constitution  of  man. 

1.  Religion,  with  the  belief  in  a  divinity,  is  a  common  charac- 
1  The  Destiny  of  Man,  pp.  30,  31,  32,  110,  112,  115,  116,  117. 


846 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


teristic  of  humanity ;  it  is  generic,  spontaneous,  powerful  and 
persistent. 

Religion,  with  the  belief  in  a  divinity,  is  a  common  character¬ 
istic  of  humanity.  It  has  already  been  shown  that  there  is  no 
religion  without  a  divinity  ;  that  in  all  religions,  however  rude 
the  worshipers’  conceptions  of  their  gods,  some  sense  of  the  pres¬ 
ence  of  an  infinite  spirit  is  always  discernible;  in  their  concep¬ 
tions  it  is  always  possible  to  trace  at  least  some  rudiments  of  the 
two  distinctive  characteristics  of  a  divinity,  that  it  is  spirit,  and 
that  it  is  absolute  or  infinite.  In  the  powers  energizing  in  nature 
they  saw  powers  thinking  and  willing  like  themselves ;  they  also 
saw  these  mighty  agencies  acting  beyond  their  reach  and  control, 
and  were  awed  before  them  as  superhuman  and  mysterious 
powers.  In  this  awe  their  souls  were  already  overshadowed  by 
the  mystery  of  the  Infinite. 

Modern  scientific  theories  imply  that  man  at  his  origin  was 
neither  savage  nor  civilized,  but  simply  undeveloped.  It  is  known 
that  whatever  progress  man  has  made  in  his  development,  there 
have  been  degenerations  from  it.  Many  religions  have  been 
known  to  be  degenerate.  Such  was  the  religion  of  the  Roman 
empire  as  described  by  Paul  in  the  opening  of  the  Epistle  to  the 
Romans.  This  fact  must  have  its  due  weight  in  investigating  the 
characteristics  of  religions.  But  in  all  religions,  even  those  which 
are  degenerated,  some  sense  of  the  divinity  as  an  infinite  spirit, 
as  spirit  above  nature  and  above  man,  may  always  be  found. 
There  is  veneration,  awe  or  fear  of  a  supernatural  and  superhu¬ 
man  being  or  beings.  Therefore  the  belief  in  a  divinity,  being 
involved  in  all  religions,  is  as  universal  as  religion. 

Religion  with  the  belief  in  a  divinity  is  a  common  and  distinc¬ 
tive  characteristic  of  man.  Plutarch  says  :  “  If  you  will  take 
the  pains  to  travel  through  the  world,  you  may  find  towns  and 
cities  without  walls,  without  letters,  without  kings,  without 
houses,  without  wealth,  without  money,  without  theatres  and 
places  of  exercise  ;  but  there  was  never  seen  by  any  man  any  city 
without  temples  and  gods.  ’  1  Cicero  says  :  “  Among  men  there 
is  no  clan  so  wild  and  savage  as  not  to  know  that  a  divinity  is  to 
be  worshiped,  although  ignorant  what  the  true  God  should  be.” 
And  Homer  says  :  “  All  men  long  for  the  gods.”2  They  are  like 
unfledged  birds,  by  an  impulse  of  nature  opening  their  bills  wide 
for  food  which  is  to  be  brought  from  beyond  the  nest. 

1  Against  Colotes  the  Epicurean,  §  31;  Morals,  Goodwin’s  Trans.,  vol.  v. 
pp.  379,  380. 

2  Cicero,  De  Legibus,  lib.  i.  8  ;  Odyssey,  iii.  48. 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  MAN. 


347 


Modern  science  confirms  what  has  been  the  common  testimony 
from  the  earliest  historical  times,  that  religion  has  been  a  char¬ 
acteristic  of  all  races  and  tribes  of  men.  The  most  advanced  re¬ 
searches  in  anthropology  reach  the  conclusion  that  no  tribe  of 
men  has  ever  been  found  without  religion.  Tylor  says  :  “  So  far 
as  I  can  judge  from  the  immense  mass  of  accessible  evidence,  we 
have  to  admit  that  the  belief  in  spiritual  beings  appears  among 
all  low  races  with  whom  we  have  attained  to  thorough  intimate 
acquaintance.”1  Quatrefages  says:  “Little  by  little  the  light 
has  appeared,  and  the  result  has  been  that  Australians,  Melane¬ 
sians,  Hottentots,  Kaffirs  and  Bechuanas  have  in  their  turn  been 
withdrawn  from  the  list  of  atheist  nations  and  recognized  as  re¬ 
ligious.  .  .  .We  nowhere  meet  with  atheism  except  in  an  erratic 
condition.  In  every  place  and  at  all  times  the  mass  of  popula¬ 
tion  have  escaped  it ;  we  nowhere  find  either  a  great  human  race, 
or  even  a  division,  however  unimportant,  of  the  race,  preferring 
atheism.”  2  Tiele  says  :  “  The  statement,  that  there  are  nations 
or  tribes  which  possess  no  religion,  rests  either  on  inaccurate  ob¬ 
servation  or  on  a  confusion  of  ideas.  No  tribe  or  nation  has  yet 
been  met  with  destitute  of  belief  in  any  higher  beings  ;  and 
travelers  who  asserted  their  existence  have  been  afterwards  re¬ 
futed  by  the  facts.  It  is  legitimate  therefore  to  call  religion  in 
its  most  general  sense  a  universal  phenomenon  of  humanity.”  3 
Accordingly,  Professor  Tyndall  and  other  modern  skeptics  of 
science  and  culture  admit  the  same  ;  they  recognize  religion  as 
constitutional  in  man,  and  requiring  provision  to  be  made  for  it ; 
although  they  affirm  that  its  object  cannot  be  known  but  can 
only  be  imagined. 

The  common  belief  of  mankind  in  a  divinity  is  also  spontane¬ 
ous.  It  is  not  the  result  of  any  generalization  of  particulars,  nor 
of  any  induction  from  facts,  nor  of  reflective  thought  in  any  form. 
There  are  no  “  Evidences  ”  or  “  Apologetics  ”  in  the  ethnic  re¬ 
ligions.  On  the  contrary  this  belief  springs  up  with  the  spon¬ 
taneity  of  life.  Man  finds  himself  limited,  dependent,  face  to 
face  with  mighty  and  mysterious  powers.  He  spontaneously  looks 
beyond  himself  to  another.  He  feels  rather  than  thinks  the  pres¬ 
ence  of  a  divinity  in  these  mighty  energies.  As  the  impression 
of  the  mountains,  the  sun,  the  sky,  the  lightning  and  the  storm  is 
borne  in  on  his  senses,  so  on  his  spirit  is  borne  in  the  impression 

1  Primitive  Culture,  vol.  i.  p.  384 

2  Quatrefages,  The  Human  Species,  pp.  475,  482,  483. 

8  Tiele,  History  of  Religion,  Carpenter  s  Translation,  p.  6. 


848 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


of  a  spiritual  and  mysterious  presence  in  these  grandeurs  of  na¬ 
ture.  In  his  straits  he  feels  his  need  and  cries  to  the  divinity  for 
help  ;  like  a  little  child  astray  from  its  mother  on  the  street  and 
in  the  sense  of  utter  helplessness  blindly  crying  for  her  return. 

This  common  belief  in  a  divinity  is  also  powerful.  Its  influ¬ 
ence  has  not  been  obscure  and  uncertain.  It  has  been  one  of  the 
most  powerful  forces  in  human  history.  It  has  also  been  a  cen¬ 
tral  agency  in  man’s  moral  progress.  The  Christian  religion, 
among  others,  and  its  historical  influence  must  be  accounted  for. 
It  cannot  be  accounted  for  on  the  supposition  of  the  atheist.  The 
mightiest  and  most  beneficent  agency  in  human  progress  cannot 
be  a  delusion  founded  only  on  falsehood. 

It  musit  be  added  that  this  belief  is  persistent.  It  has  the  char¬ 
acteristic  of  primitive  belief  that  it  persists  in  the  face  of  unex¬ 
plained  difficulties.  Tylor  relates  that  certain  African  savages 
were  asked  how  their  divinities  could  partake  of  their  offerings, 
since  the  meats  which  they  had  set  forth  for  them  at  night  were 
found  unconsumed  and  unchanged  in  the  morning.  They  were 
not  in  the  least  shaken  in  their  belief,  but  replied  without  hesita¬ 
tion  that  the  spirits  licked  them.1  It  persists  also  in  spite  of  the 
speculations  and  opposition  of  atheism.  It  has  the  characteristic 
of  a  primitive  belief  that  it  persists  in  the  feelings  and  spontane¬ 
ous  beliefs  and  actions,  even  when  by  intellectual  questionings  the 
man  has  brought  himself  to  speculative  doubt  or  unbelief.  So 
the  idealist  practically  treats  outward  things  as  objectively  real. 
So  Madame  De  Stael  said  of  ghosts,  I  do  not  believe  in  them,  but 
I  fear  them  ;  her  spontaneous  and  true  belief  in  spiritual  and 
supernatural  beings  persisting  in  the  feelings  and  asserting  itself 
in  consciousness  at  the  very  thought  of  supernatural  manifesta¬ 
tions  even  in  forms  admitted  to  be  unreal. 

Atheism  has  never  been  able  to  establish  itself  except  within 
very  narrow  limits.  We  find  individual  atheists,  but  not  atheis¬ 
tic  races,  tribes  or  peoples.  And  at  no  period  has  mankind  ever 
been  atheistic.  Quatrefages  says  :  “  Obliged  as  I  am  to  pass  in 
review  all  races  of  men,  I  have  sought  for  atheism  in  the  lowest 
and  the  highest,  but  nowhere  have  I  met  with  it  except  in  in¬ 
dividuals  or  at  most  in  some  more  or  less  limited  schools,  such  as 
those  which  existed  in  Europe  in  the  last  century,  or  which  may 
be  seen  at  the  present  day.”  2 

In  this  sporadic  existence  atheism  is  manifestly  a  departure 

1  Tylor,  Primitive  Culture,  vol.  ii.  p.  351. 

2  The  Human  Species,  p.  482. 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  MAN. 


349 


'N 

from  a  primitive  religiousness.  It  is  the  product  of  speculative 
thought  which  has  led  some  away  from  their  primitive  religious 
belief,  just  as  it  has  also  led  some  to  deny  all  knowledge  of  the 
existence  of  the  outward  world.  And  where  atheistic  schools  and 
parties  have  appeared,  as  in  the  first  French  revolution  and 
among  the  Nihilists  now,  it  has  been  brought  about  through  some 
revolutionary  craze  in  which  belief  in  God  has  been  falsely  iden¬ 
tified  with  injustice  and  oppression,  or  through  some  other  ex¬ 
traneous  influence  falsifying  the  significance  and  influence  of  re¬ 
ligious  belief  ;  or  through  moral  corruption,  or  anarchical  fury, 
which  must  first  break  down  all  belief  in  God  in  order  to  ac¬ 
complish  its  evil  designs.  And  even  thus  the  number  of  atheists 
has  always  been  comparatively  very  small.  The  number  of  per¬ 
sons  who  have  come  to  a  speculative  disbelief  of  the  existence  of 
a  divinity  and  have  avowed  themselves  atheists  is  probably  not 
greater  than  the  number  who  have  come  to  a  speculative  disbe¬ 
lief  of  the  existence  of  the  outward  world  and  have  avowed  them¬ 
selves  idealists  or  phenomenalists.  The  latter  half  of  the  last 
century  was  a  period  noted  for  the  prevalence  of  atheism.  But 
when  David  Hume  was  in  Paris  doing  the  duties  of  secretary  to 
the  embassy,  it  happened  one  evening  at  the  table  of  Baron 
d’Holbach  that  the  conversation  turned  on  natural  religion,  and 
Mr.  Hume  declared  that  in  all  his  life  he  had  never  met  an  athe¬ 
ist.  The  baron  replied,  You  now  encounter  seventeen  all  in  a 
bunch.  Hume  did  not  ask  to  be  counted  as  the  eighteenth.  He 
had  never  seen  an  atheist  in  Great  Britain.  But  at  that  time 
atheism  was  spreading  in  France  ;  and  it  is  a  common  impression 
that  a  few  years  later,  in  the  revolution,  all  France  was  atheistic. 
Yet  probably  in  the  highest  frenzy  of  the  revolution  the  atheists 
were  a  small  minority  of  the  population  of  that  country.  Some 
years  before  this  incident  Mr.  Hume’s  mother  died.  *  His  friend 
Boyle,  finding  him  in  the  deepest  affliction  and  in  a  flood  of  tears, 
expressed  regret  that  he  had  not  the  consolations  of  the  Christian 
faith.  Mr.  Hume  replied :  “  Ah,  my  friend,  I  throw  out  my 
speculations  to  entertain  the  learned  and  metaphysical  world  ; 
yet,  in  other  things,  I  do  not  think  so  differently  from  the  rest  of 
the  world  as  you  imagine.”  1 

Atheism  is  short-lived  as  well  as  circumscribed.  No  scheme 
of  thought,  so  earnestly  advocated  as  atheism  at  times  has  been, 
ever  makes  so  few  converts  or  lasts  so  short  a  time.  In  the 

1  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes,  1856,  voi.  vi.  pp.  118,  119;  Burton’s  Life  of 
Hume,  vol.  i.  pp.  293,  294. 


850 


THE  SELF-KEVELATION  OF  GOD. 


French  revolution  the  festival  of  Reason  in  Notre  Dame,  Novem¬ 
ber  7,  1793,  was  followed  in  less  than  eight  months  by  Robes¬ 
pierre’s  scenic  restoration  of  the  Supreme  Being  in  a  festival  in 
the  Tuileries  and  the  Champ  de  Mars.  When  atheism  has  burned 
over  a  community  and  seemingly  has  consumed  the  very  roots 
and  seeds  of  religion,  presently  religious  belief  reappears,  as 
vegetation  springs  up  on  burned  land.  And  it  springs  up  again, 
not  by  force  of  argument  but  spontaneously  ;  because  man  can¬ 
not  get  on  without  it ;  because  man’s  spirit  asserts  anew  its  es¬ 
sential  relation  to  God  and  dependence  on  him.  It  is  the  renewal 
of  the  ancient  cry,  which  utters  the  inmost  need  of  the  human 
heart  in  every  age  :  “  As  the  hart  panteth  after  the  water- brooks, 
so  panteth  my  soul  after  thee,  O  God.  My  soul  thirsteth  for 
God,  for  the  living  God  ;  when  shall  I  come  and  appear  before 
God  ?  ” 

The  same  is  true  in  the  history  of  agnostic  and  monistic  spec¬ 
ulations,  which,  with  intellectual  assent  to  the  existence  of  an 
absolute  Being,  deny  that  it  can  be  known  as  a  personal  Spirit 
with  whom  it  is  possible  for  man  to  commune  in  acts  of  trust  and 
service.  The  objection  is  urged  that  hundreds  of  millions  of 
Asiatics  are  satisfied  with  the  abstractions  of  Buddhism  and 
Brahmanism,  without  the  worship  of  a  personal  divinity.  Just 
the  contrary  is  the  fact.  The  abstract  speculations  of  Buddhism 
and  Brahmanism  never  satisfied  the  religious  wants  of  the  peo¬ 
ple  ;  but  they  are  the  worshipers  of  many  gods.  “  Buddha  (the 
Enlightened),  which  was  at  first  only  a  title  given  to  the  founder 
of  the  religion,  became  in  course  of  time  the  real  substitute  for 
God  in  the  minds  of  hundreds  of  millions  of  men;  and  Buddha, 
or  Lama  in  Thibet,  was  any  one  who  succeeded  in  making  peo¬ 
ple  believe  that  he  was  a  real  incarnation  of  a  previous  Buddha  ; 
and  for  the*  mass  of  the  people  there  was  and  there  is  yet  no 
other  God.”  1  Instead  of  recognizing  no  God  accessible  to  wor¬ 
ship  and  communion  the  Buddhists  seem  to  be  universal  believ¬ 
ers  in  prayer ;  one  of  their  forms  of  prayer  is  probably  repeated 
more  times  every  day  than  the  Lord’s  Prayer  or  any  other  form 
of  prayer  known  to  man.  And  not  satisfied  with  the  abundance 
of  prayer  from  their  own  lips,  they  are  the  only  people  that  ever 
resorted  also  to  prayer-mills  that  they  might  be  sure  that  their 
petitions  were  being  always  presented  before  God.  It  is  not  true 
therefore  that  four  hundred  millions  of  Asiatics  are  atheists  or  at 
least  pantheists  believing  in  no  personal  God  with  whom  man  can 

1  Gentilism,  by  Th^baud,  pp.  157,  J58. 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  MAN. 


351 


commune  in  acts  of  trust  and  service.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  a 
striking  exemplification  of  the  common  historical  fact  that  when 
atheistic  speculation  has  prevailed  with  a  few  and  for  a  time,  it 
is  speedily  swept  away  among  the  people  by  the  return  of  belief 
in  a  divinity  that  can  be  the  object  of  religious  trust  and  service. 
In  view  of  such  facts  we  may  say  with  Kuenen  :  u  The  religious 
faith  that  has  once  struck  root  in  the  heart  of  a  people  never 
dies.”  1 

It  is  also  a  significant  fact  that  when  the  higher  classes  of  so¬ 
ciety  in  any  country  are  sliding  into  skepticism  and  abandoning 
religion,  fantastic  or  fanatical  superstitions  break  out  among  the 
less  educated,  and  even  get  control  of  the  skeptics  themselves. 
The  decline  of  religious  belief  in  the  Roman  Empire  was  ac¬ 
companied  by  a  remarkable  prevalence  of  magic  arts  and  of  be¬ 
lief  in  them.  The  materialism  and  agnosticism  of  the  present 
time  are  accompanied  by  a  wide-spread  belief  in  spirit-rappings. 

In  individuals  who  have  become  skeptical  or  atheistic  the  sus¬ 
ceptibility  to  religious  sentiment  survives  and  frequently  reas¬ 
serts  itself  and  brings  back  belief  in  a  God,  sometimes  in  very  re¬ 
markable  ways.  Many  agnostics,  positivists  and  materialists  of 
the  present  day  acknowledge  that  religion  belongs  to  the  consti¬ 
tution  of  man  and  must  have  some  object  provided  for  it.  Various 
objects  have  been  proposed,  among  which  are  the  Unknowable, 
the  Great  Human  Being  or  Generic  Humanity,  the  Universe  it¬ 
self,  and  even  Physical  Science.  None  of  these  can  satisfy'  man’s 
spiritual  needs,  but  the  proposals  are  so  many  testimonies  to  the 
universality  of  religious  sentiments  and  wants  and  to  the  neces¬ 
sity  of  some  object  of  religious  reverence  and  homage  adequate 
to  satisfy  them.  The  religious  sentiment  often  asserts  itself  also 
in  persons  who  have  long  lived  in  apparent  unconsciousness  of  it. 
Comte,  until  after  he  published  the  Positive  Philosophy,  appears 
not  to  have  recognized  religion  as  having  any  legitimate  place 
in  the  further  development  of  individuals  or  of  society.  It  had 
played  its  part,  had  passed  through  all  its  necessary  stages  and 
now  must  pass  away.  But  when  he  was  nearly  fifty  years  old, 
in  his  acquaintance  with  Madame  Clotilde  de  Vaux  and  his  grief 
at  her  death  soon  after,  sentiment  and  feeling  burst  through  the 
rocky  strata  of  intellectuality  which  had  repressed  and  concealed 
them  and  flamed  up  in  language  expressing  nothing  less  than 
adoration  of  her.  In  this  crisis  of  his  life  his  religious  conscious¬ 
ness  was  awakened  and  he  proposed  Humanity  itself  as  the  Great 
1  National  Religions  and  Universal  Religions,  p.  40. 


352 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


Being  to  be  the  object  of  religious  worship  and  service.  Another 
example  of  the  same  is  found  in  the  life  of  John  Stuart  Mill.  He 
says  explicitly  that  he  was  of  the  few  who  have  never  thrown  off 
religion  because  they  had  never  had  it.  “  I  looked  upon  the 
modern  exactly  as  I  did  upon  the  ancient  religion,  as  something 
which  no  way  concerned  me.”  His  education  was  chilling  to  all 
sentiment  and  his  life  was  preeminently  a  life  of  the  intellect. 
In  his  love  for  Mrs.  Taylor,  who  became  his  wife,  the  emotional 
forces  of  his  being  broke  their  long  repression  and  asserted  them¬ 
selves  with  might.  And  in  this  and  his  grief  at  her  death,  which, 
like  Comte,  he  utters  in  language  of  adoration,  he  seems  to  have 
become  aware  of  religious  sentiments  and  wants.  In  the  case  of 
each  of  these  men  the  woman  seems  to  have  exerted  an  influence 
on  his  religiously  benumbed  and  undeveloped  soul  analogous  to 
that  exerted  in  the  middle  ages  by  the  Virgin  Mary. 

These  cases  exemplify  the  fact  that  frequently  what  awakens 
the  unbeliever  to  the  consciousness  of  the  spiritual  and  the  divine 
is  not  argument  nor  clear  and  convincing  presentation  of  truth 
to  the  intellect.  The  human  spirit  is  in  its  constitution  adapted 
to  the  spiritual  system  of  which  it  is  a  member.  In  every  soul 
is  a  secret  chord  responsive  to  the  touch  of  the  spiritual  and  the 
divine,  as  the  strings  of  a  violin  respond  to  the  touch  of  the  bow 
in  the  hand  of  a  musician.  Hence  the  slumbering  religious  sus¬ 
ceptibility  may  be  awakened  by  a  vivid  picturing  of  spiritual 
realities  to  the  imagination,  or  of  the  love  of  God  in  Christ  to 
the  heart.  It  may  be  awakened  by  new  emergencies,  by  bereave¬ 
ment,  by  danger,  as  Volney  at  a  time  of  expected  shipwreck  was 
found  praying.  And,  though  according  to  my  observation  men 
usually  die  in  the  belief  and  character  in  which  they  have  lived, 
yet  sometimes  the  religious  susceptibilities  are  awakened  and 
previous  unbelief  is  swept  away  at  the  approach  of  death.  That 
which  awakens  these  sensibilities  and  leads  from  unbelief  to 
belief  may  be  something  which  judged  by  the  logical  understand¬ 
ing  seems  trivial.  Dr.  George  B.  Cheever  relates  that  a  pastor 
had  long  labored  with  a  man  to  convince  him  of  God’s  righteous 
government  and  judgment  of  the  world,  but  in  vain.  But  this 
man  felled  a  tree  and  as  it  came  crashing  down  and  lay  motion¬ 
less  where  it  fell,  the  words  came  to  his  mind,  “  Where  the  tree 
falleth  there  it  shall  be,”  with  a  force  which  carried  away  all  his 
unbelief,  let  in  the  flood  of  the  divine  argument  upon  his  soul, 
and  brought  him  at  length  to  Christian  faith  and  repentance.1 

1  The  Powers  of  the  World  to  Come,  p.  64. 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  MAN. 


358 


A  most  unreasoning  and  unreasonable  change,  it  will  be  said. 
Most  reasonable,  I  answer,  though  unreasoning.  It  matters  not 
what  awakens  the  spiritual  susceptibilities  of  the  soul  ;  once 
awakened  it  must  turn  to  God,  its  only  satisfaction  and  rest,  or 
it  must  sink  back  into  spiritual  insensibility,  fainting  through 
lack  of  the  air  by  which  alone  the  spiritual  life  can  be  sustained. 
Hence  comes  such  unexpected  and  seemingly  inexplicable  break¬ 
ing  down  of  unbelief  in  the  great  crises  of  life.  And  therefore 
it  is  not  strange,  when  the  awful  form  of  death  is  drawing  near 
and  the  shadow  of  his  coming  glooms  upon  the  soul,  that  the 
spiritual  in  the  man  awakes,  as  the  body  is  sinking  to  its  last 
sleep,  and  finds  itself,  as  the  spirit  when  it  awakes  must  always 
find  itself,  face  to  face  with  God. 

The  present  is  commonly  said  to  be  a  time  of  the  suspense  and 
even  of  the  decay  of  faith.  On  the  other  hand  Mr.  Lewes  says  : 
44  Ours  is  no  longer  the  age  described  by  Carlyle  4  destitute  of 
faith  yet  terrified  at  skepticism.’  It  is  an  age  clamorous  for 
faith,  and  dissatisfied  with  skepticism  only  when  skepticism  is  a 
resting  place  instead  of  a  starting  point,  a  result  instead  of  a 
preliminary  caution.  The  purely  negative  attitude  of  unbelief, 
once  regarded  as  philosophical,  is  now  generally  understood  to 
be  laudable  only  in  the  face  of  the  demonstratively  incredible.”1 
The  history  of  religion  justifies  the  expectation  that  the  present 
time  will  prove  rather  to  be  a  period  of  transition,  and  that  be¬ 
neath  the  earnest  thinking  which  doubt  and  questioning  have 
called  forth,  the  germs  are  already  sprouting  of  a  faith  purer, 
stronger  and  more  comprehensive  of  all  that  is  distinctively 
Christian.  And  however  science  may  emphasize  the  physical 
origin  and  nature  of  man,  it  only  presents  in  clearer  light  by  the 
contrast  his  spiritual  being.  As  Dr.  Thomson,  Archbishop  of 
York,  says:  “You  may  lower  the  position  of  man  by  comparing 
him  to  the  apes  and  by  chemical  analysis  of  his  brain ;  all  the 
more  wonderful  is  it  that  a  creature  in  such  sorry  case  should 
pretend  to  hold  communion  with  the  divine.  His  feet  are  in  the 
earthy  clay,  but  his  head  is  lifted  up  toward  heaven.  Heir  to  a 
hundred  maladies,  the  sport  of  a  hundred  passions,  holding  on 
this  life,  so  checkered  in  its  complexion,  but  for  a  few  days,  this 
creature  cries  out  of  his  trouble  :  4  God  exists ;  and  he  can  see 
and  hear  me.’  ”  2 

2.  From  the  foregoing  evidence  of  the  universality,  spontane- 

1  Problems  of  Life  and  Mind,  First  Series,  vol.  i.  pp.  1,  2. 

2  Modern  Skepticism,  p.  18. 

23 


354 


THE  SELF-RE YELATION  OF  GOD. 


ity,  power  and  persistence  of  religious  belief,  the  inference  is 
legitimate  and  necessary  that  religion  with  the  belief  in  a  divin¬ 
ity  involved  in  it  has  root  in  the  constitution  of  man  and  is  an 
essential  and  distinctive  trait  of  humanity.1  In  other  words,  the 
inference  is  that  man  is  so  constituted  that  when  normally  de¬ 
veloped  he  finds  himself  in  the  presence  of  a  divinity  and  con¬ 
scious  of  religiousness.  And  this  is  inferred,  not  merely  from 
the  prevalence  of  belief  in  a  divinity  in  all  tribes  of  men,  but 
also  from  its  spontaneity,  power  and  persistence.  Men  pray  to  a 
divinity  before  they  attempt  to  prove  its  existence.  They  are 
religious  before  they  are  scientific  either  in  empirical,  philosoph¬ 
ical  or  theological  science.  And  their  spontaneous  belief  in  a 
God  is  the  basis  of  their  theological  knowledge ;  as  their  spon¬ 
taneous  belief  in  the  existence  of  the  earth,  the  sun,  moon  and 
stars  is  the  basis  of  physics  and  astronomy.  A  belief  thus  per¬ 
vasive,  spontaneous,  powerful  and  persistent  can  be  satisfactorily 
explained  only  as  resulting  from  the  normal  development  of  the 
constitution  of  man.  When  man’s  constitution  is  normally  de¬ 
veloped  the  idea  of  a  divinity  and  the  sentiments  of  religion  will 
reveal  themselves  in  his  consciousness. 

On  the  contrary,  atheism  is  not  spontaneous ;  it  arises  only 
from  reflective  thought,  after  skepticism  in  its  better  meaning 
has  made  its  appearance  and  man  has  begun  to  investigate  the 
grounds  of  religious  belief.  In  this  respect  man  is  found  in  three 
stages.  In  the  outset  the  child  is  destitute  of  religious  feelings 
and  ideas;  it  knows  no  divinity.  This  is  not  atheism,  but  is 
simply  infancy,  in  which  all  the  powers  are  undeveloped.  The 
second  stage  is  that  of  spontaneous  religious  sentiment  and  be¬ 
lief.  The  third  is  that  of  reflective  thought  on  religion  and  its 
object.  This  commonly  confirms  and  purifies  from  error  the  spon¬ 
taneous  religion  and  its  beliefs,  and  develops  them  into  thought¬ 
ful  conviction  that  a  divinity  exists  and  is  to  be  worshiped,  and 
into  some  definite  apprehension  of  what  the  divinity  is  and  what 
service  is  acceptable  to  him.  In  some  cases,  however,  though 
comparatively  few,  the  questioning  and  thinking  issue  in  some 
form  of  atheism.  But  in  the  second  stage,  that  of  spontaneous 
belief,  man  is  always  religious  and  atheism  is  never  found. 

Not  merely  is  the  belief  in  a  divinity  the  spontaneous  result 

1  “It  will  not  do  to  say,  we  have  no  ‘  organ  ’  for  procuring  us  such  and 
such  experiences  ;  we  must  first  inquire  what  experiences  we  actually  have, 
and  then  will  follow  the  question,  what  ‘  organs  ’  are  those  by  which  they  are 
procured.”  — Philosophy  and  Science ,  Mind,  vol.  i.  p.  234. 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  MAN. 


355 


of  man’s  normal  development ;  the  idea  of  a  divinity  when  once 
attained  is  one  with  which  the  mind  has  affinity  as  congenial 
with  itself,  and  in  which  it  finds  its  own  powers  and  susceptibil¬ 
ities  unfolded  and  revealed  in  consciousness.  The  knowledge  of 
God  is  a  revelation  of  the  human  spirit  to  itself. 

Here  it  is  sometimes  objected  that  the  idea  of  God  is  transmit¬ 
ted  by  tradition ;  children  are  taught  the  faith  of  their  parents. 
This  is  true  ;  and  when  religious  belief  has  once  pervaded  a  com¬ 
munity,  the  transmission  of  it  from  parents  to  children  is  inevi¬ 
table.  It  is  also  true  that  it  is  according  to  the  constitution  of 
man  that  children  are  born  of  parents  and  in  their  early  years 
must  breathe  the  atmosphere  of  parental  influence.  Moreover 
this  very  fact  implies  in  the  child  a  constitutional  capacity  for 
religion.  A  child  cannot  be  taught  any  thing  which  it  has  no 
constitutional  faculty  to  know  or  susceptibility  to  feel.  It  is  im¬ 
possible  to  teach  a  dog  the  multiplication  table  or  the  binomial 
theorem,  or  a  person  blind  from  birth  what  is  the  sensation  of 
light  and  color.  It  is  impossible  to  influence  a  person  to  action 
by  motives  which  he  has  no  capacity  to  feel.  Education  can  do 
no  more  than  to  draw  out  or  develop  what  is  already  in  the  per¬ 
son  who  is  educated.  Plato  in  the  Meno  represents  Socrates  as 
questioning  a  boy  who  answers  wrong,  but  after  repeated  ques¬ 
tions  he  sees  the  truth  and  gives  the  right  answer.  Then  Soc¬ 
rates  says:  “You  see  I  have  told  him  nothing,  and  yet  he  an¬ 
swers  right  now.  The  idea  was  in  his  mind  and  all  I  had  to  do 
was  to  draw  it  out.”  He  then  proceeds  to  illustrate  education 
as  a  drawing  out  of  the  mind.  And,  though  the  idea  was  not 
literally  in  the  boy’s  mind,  the  capacity  of  knowing  it  was  there, 
by  which,  under  the  stimulus  of  the  questions,  he  discovered  it 
himself.  Even  when  information  is  directly  imparted  the  pupil 
must  apprehend  it  by  the  action  of  his  own  faculties  or  not  at 
all.  Equally  impossible  is  it  to  impart  to  a  child  any  idea  of  a 
God  or  to  awaken  any  religious  sentiments,  if  the  child  is  not  con¬ 
stituted  with  powers  and  susceptibilities  for  them.  And  we  find 
the  minds  of  very  young  children  active  in  laying  hold  of  the  re¬ 
ligious  ideas  communicated  to  them  and  trying  to  frame  to  them¬ 
selves  the  ideas  of  God  and  spiritual  realities  ;  pondering  not 
merely  God’s  love  and  the  personal  attributes  revealed  in  the  life 
of  Christ,  but  also  the  idea  of  the  absolute,  and  wondering  over 
an  existence  without  beginning  or  end,  space  without  bounds, 
power  that  is  almighty,  and  knowledge  of  all  things  from  which 
nothing  can  be  hid.  The  child’s  ideas  are  childlike.  But  they 


356 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


are  ideas  in  the  sphere  of  the  divine  and  reveal  a  capacity  to 
know  God.  And  in  this  activity  of  a  child’s  mind  we  can  see 
some  image  of  the  action  of  the  primitive  men  in  the  childhood 
of  the  race  trying  to  define  to  themselves,  without  a  human 
teacher,  the  idea  of  a  god. 

Seneca  says  :  “  Do  you  wonder  that  men  go  to  the  gods  ?  God 
comes  to  men  ;  indeed,  more  exactly,  God  comes  into  men ;  no 
heart  is  good  without  God.  Seeds  of  the  divine  are  scattered  in 
human  bodies,  which,  if  well  cultivated,  spring  up  and  grow  in 
the  likeness  of  their  original.”  1  The  earlier  Stoics  taught  man’s 
self-sufficiency  and  denied  the  need  of  faith  in  a  God  in  moral  ac¬ 
tion  and  character  ;  but  the  later  acknowledged  man’s  dependence 
for  right  character  and  life  on  the  indwelling  God.  Their  ideal 
wise  man  was  a  Godman,  in  whom  the  Logos  or  absolute  Reason- 
dwelt.  In  this  and  other  passages  in  Seneca’s  writings  this  change 
is  noticeable.  But  the  divinity  cannot  find  entrance  to  the  soul 
of  man  and  influence  it  for  good  unless  man  is  constituted  with 
capacity  for  communing  with  God  and  receiving  his  influence.. 
This  Seneca  recognizes.  The  seeds  of  the  divine  must  be  in  the 
man  or  no  culture  can  cause  any  thing  in  him  to  grow  in  the 
likeness  of  the  divine.  And  this  must  be  acknowledged  unless 
we  fall  into  pantheism,  as  the  Stoics  did,  and  recognize  in  man 
no  personality  of  his  own,  but  only  the  absolute  Reason  itself 
shining  in  the  human  being  as  the  sunshine  reveals  itself  tempo¬ 
rarily  on  some  angle  of  a  diamond  as  a  single  point  of  light. 

All  this  is  illustrated  in  the  education  of  the  deaf  and  dumb. 
The  testimony  of  their  most  successful  teachers  has  been  that  they 
are  less  developed  than  pupils  of  the  same  age  who  hear;  and 
that  the  absence  of  the  idea  of  God  is  not  atheism,  but  is  merely 
an  incident  of  the  undeveloped  mind.  One  of  them  writes  r 
“  Our  readers  may  be  interested  to  learn  the  first  steps  of  the 
method  pursued  in  imparting  to  the  deaf  and  dumb  a  knowledge 
of  the  soul,  and  of  God  and  his  attributes.  .  .  .  We  have  not  to 
construct  an  argument  to  which  the  mind  of  an  inveterate  skep¬ 
tic,  if  there,  could  bring  no  objection,  but  rather  to  trace  the  path, 
along  which  a  mind  anxious  to  know  the  truth  might  reach  a  sat¬ 
isfactory  conclusion.  It  is  not  so  much,  even  to  the  deaf  mute, 
an  introduction  of  new  facts,  as  pointing  out  the  relations  of  those 
he  already  knows,  although  they  have  never  excited  his  attention, 
and  leading  him  to  draw  the  plain  and  obvious  inference.  ...  In 
order  to  introduce  the  idea  of  God  to  the  mind  of  the  deaf  and 


1  Seneca,  Epist.  73  :  14. 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  MAN. 


357 


dumb,  you  have  only  to  educate  or  develop-  the  reflective  power 
to  a  certain  point.  .  .  .  As  we  should  expect,  in  most  cases  the  idea 
of  God  would  enter  gradually.  .  .  .  With  some  individuals  how¬ 
ever  it  has  happened  that  in  following  a  course  of  thought  like 
that  above  suggested,  the  sublime  idea  of  God  has  seemed  to  burst 
at  once  upon  the  mind  with  overwhelming  power.  The  temple 
that  before  was  tenantless  and  lonely  is  filled  with  glory  and  the 
soul  shrinks  with  awe  and  amazement  before  the  presence  of  its 
Maker,  till  now  unknown.  Similar  to  this  was  the  experience  of 
Massieu,  the  celebrated  pupil  of  the  Abbe  Sicard/’  The  Abbd 
relates  that,  when,  after  preparing  his  mind  in  the  way  already 
adverted  to,  he  announced  to  him  God,  the  author  of  the  beings 
that  he  saw  and  the  object  of  our  worship,  Massieu,  awed  and 
trembling,  44  prostrated  himself  and  thus  offered  to  this  great  Be¬ 
ing  the  first  homage  of  his  worship  and  adoration.  When  recov¬ 
ered  from  this  sort  of  ecstasy  he  said  to  me  by  signs  these  beau¬ 
tiful  words,  which  I  shall  not  forget  while  I  have  life :  ‘  Ah,  let 
me  go  to  my  father,  to  my  mother,  to  my  brothers  to  tell  them 
there  is  a  God;  they  know  it  not.’  ”  1 

But  we  are  concerned  not  merely  with  the  origin  and  develop¬ 
ment  of  the  idea  of  a  divinity.  It  is  a  fact  that  man  has  the  idea 
of  God  in  all  its  fulness  and  majesty  as  held  in  Christian  theism. 
It  is  also  a  fact  that  from  the  ruder  conceptions  of  a  divinity  held 
in  man’s  savage  state,  men  have  advanced  till  they  have  attained 
the  grand  conception  of  God  which  Christianity  presents.  Men 
have  actually  come  to  believe  that  God  is  the  absolute  Being,  self- 
existent,  eternal,  omnipresent,  almighty,  the  absolute  and  univer¬ 
sal  Reason,  the  eternal  Spirit  perfect  in  wisdom  and  love.  Mr. 
Tyndall  says  man  has  no  faculty  and  no  rudiment  of  a  faculty  by 
which  he  can  know  that  a  divinity  exists.  How  then  has  he 
come  by  the  idea  of  God  ?  Why  is  the  belief  in  the  existence  of 
a  God  the  common  characteristic  of  humanity  ?  Why  has  it  been 
so  spontaneous,  powerful  and  persistent  ?  How  comes  man  by 
the  ideas  of  eternity,  immensity,  unconditionedness?  Some  say 
that  they  come  from  his  knowledge  of  his  own  limitations.  But 
how  can  I  have  the  ideas  of  finiteness,  conditionedness  and  imper¬ 
fection  except  as  I  contrast  them  with  the  ideas  of  the  unlimited, 
the  unconditioned,  the  perfect  ?  And  if  it  is  said  that  these  ideas 
and  the  idea  of  the  all-perfect  God  have  been  communicated  by 
tradition,  this  only  pushes  us  back  on  the  question,  How  did  it 

1  American  Annals  of  the  Deaf  and  Dumb,  vol.  vi.  No.  iii.,  April,  1854,  pp. 
139,  140. 


358 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


originate,  so  that  man’s  ancestors  had  it  to  transmit?  Certainly, 
if  the  belief  in  a  divinity  lias  no  root  in  the  constitution  of  man, 
if  man  has  no  rudiment  of  a  faculty  for  knowing  God,  then  this 
grand  idea  of  the  absolute  Spirit,  infinite  in  power  and  perfect  in 
wisdom  and  love,  could  not  have  been  originated  by  man  nor 
even  communicated  to  him  by  instruction  or  revelation  from  with¬ 
out.  The  idea  would  simply  be  impossible  to  him. 

It  is  sometimes  objected  that  the  idea  of  God  is  a  figment  of 
the  imagination.  The  impossibility  of  this  is  now  evident.  The 
imagination  cannot  create  a  new  element  of  thought ;  it  can  only 
combine  elements  already  given.  The  idea  of  a  divinity  contains 
elements  of  thought  which  imagination  could  never  have  invented. 

The  belief  in  a  divinity  rises  spontaneously  in  the  religious 
consciousness  of  man.  In  attempting  to  define  and  develop  in 
thought  the  idea  of  God  involved  in  this  belief,  man  makes  mis¬ 
takes.  Here  the  imagination  comes  in  and  combines  the  ele¬ 
ments  presented  in  the  religious  consciousness  into  various  and 
sometimes  fantastic  forms.  This  is  very  different  from  the  thor¬ 
ough-going  imagination  supposed  by  the  objector,  which  creates 
the  idea  itself  and  all  the  elements  entering  into  it.  And  yet  in 
all  the  varied  forms  in  which  the  divinity  has  been  imagined  es¬ 
sential  elements  of  the  true  idea  are  always  found.  The  divinity 
is  always  conceived  as  at  least  a  supernatural  and  superhuman 
power,  transcending  the  thought  that  would  define  it.  Schelling 
speaks  of  the  ethnic  mythologies  as  religion  growing  wild.  But 
wild  plants  are  living  plants,  and  when  developed  under  cultiva¬ 
tion  to  greater  beauty  of  flower  and  richness  of  fruit  are  still  the 
so.me  plants  developed.  As  Professor  Pfleiderer  says  :  “  The  im¬ 
agination,  in  as  it  were  instinctive  rationality,  anticipates  the 
highest  truth  of  reason,  to  which  philosophical  thought  always 
comes  back  at  last,  that  the  world  is  the  manifestation  of  the 
same  Spirit  which  in  the  Ego  gives  us  immediate  knowledge  of 
itself  as  our  own  essence ;  ”  1  or,  as  I  should  put  it,  as  spirit  in 
essence  like  ourselves.  And  in  studying  the  ethnic  religions  we 
find  their  true  significance  only  as  we  recognize  in  them  attempts 
more  or  less  successful  to  define  the  idea  of  God  as  he  reveals 
himself  in  the  universe  and  in  the  spirit  of  man,  and  the  at¬ 
tainment,  with  the  progressive  development  of  man,  of  ideas  of 
God  more  worthy  of  the  approval  of  reason  and  more  satisfying 
to  the  needs  of  the  unfolding  spiritual  capacities  and  life.  Even 
polytheism  is  not  wholly  unlike  monotheism.  The  numerical 

1  Religionsphil.  p.  277. 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  MAN. 


359 


distinction  does  not  tell  all  the  facts.  Professor  Max  Muller  has 
shown  that  in  some  polytheistic  religions,  each  god  becomes  to 
the  worshiper  the  representative  for  the  time  being  of  the  supreme 
God.  “  Each  god  is  felt  at  the  time  as  supreme  and  absolute,  in 
spite  of  the  necessary  limitation  which  to  our  minds  a  plurality 
of  gods  must  entail  on  every  single  god.”  1  And  in  the  most  dis¬ 
tinctive  polytheism  each  god,  presiding  over  some  department  or 
power  of  nature,  stands  in  the  mind  of  the  worshiper  for  one  as¬ 
pect  of  the  divine.  And  when  in  the  later  religion  of  the  Roman 
Empire  every  condition  and  act  of  life  had  its  separate  divinity, 
that  seeming  extreme  of  polytheism  was  really  an  approximation 
to  theism  in  recognizing  the  dependence  of  everything  on  God 
and  the  presence  and  action  of  God  everywhere.  Polytheism  con¬ 
fronted  with  the  necessity  of  an  infinite  number  of  gods  was  al¬ 
ready  demonstrating  its  own  incapacity  and  falsity  and  pointing 
to  the  one  supreme  and  everywhere  present  God. 

Here  the  objection  is  urged  that  historically  religion  does  not 
begin  with  the  worship  of  a  personal  Spirit,  but  of  physical  ob¬ 
jects  and  powers.  This  theory  of  the  origin  of  religion  has  re¬ 
cently  been  presented  with  learning  and  ability  by  Mr.  Keary.2 
He  argues  that,  as  physical  things  and  motions  are  supposed  to 
have  been  designated  by  words  before  the  mind  and  mental  proc¬ 
esses  were  thus  designated,  so  religion  must  have  begun  with 
the  worship  of  material  things  and  physical  powers.  He  sup¬ 
poses  that  religion  began  as  fetich-worship,  and  that  the  great 
fetich-gods  of  the  early  world  were  three,  and  three  only,  the 
tree,  the  mountain,  and  the  river.  His  explanation  of  tree-wor¬ 
ship  is  this  :  Primeval  men  lived  on  roots  and  berries  or  on  the 
smaller  animals  and  the  vermin  which  they  gathered  from  the 
soil,  and  so  habitually  kept  their  eyes  fixed  on  the  ground.  In 
their  half  glances  upward  they  had  not  leisure  to  observe  that 
the  tree-top  was  not  really  close  against  the  sky.  “  They  may 
well  have  deemed  that  the  upper  branches  hid  themselves  in  in¬ 
finitely  remote  ethereal  regions.”  It  appears,  it  may  be  re¬ 
marked  in  passing,  that  these  primitive  men,  who  had  never 
learned  that  a  tree  does  not  touch  the  sky,  had  the  idea  of  “  in¬ 
finitely  remote  ethereal  regions.”  Fetichism,  beginning  with  the 
worship  of  an  individual  tree,  “  passed  on  to  the  worship  of  many 
trees,  of  the  grove  of  trees,  and  it  soon  proceeded  thence  to  a 

1  Hibbert  Lectures,  p.  285. 

2  Outlines  of  Primitive  Beliefs,  oy  Charles  F.  Keary,  of  the  British  Mu¬ 
seum,  pp.  37,  58,  59,  30,  31. 


360 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


worship  of  some  invisible  belonging  of  the  grove.  This  might 
be  the  sacred  silence  which  seems  to  reign  in  the  wood,  or  the 
storm  which  rashes  through  it,  or  any  of  the  dim,  mysterious 
forest  sounds.  From  the  visible  and  tangible  things  of  earth  re¬ 
ligion  looked  farther  away  to  the  heavenly  bodies  or  to  the  sky 
itself.  And  then  at  last  it  emerged  from  the  nature-worshiping 
stage,  and  the  voice  of  God,  which  was  heard  once  in  the  whirl¬ 
wind,  was  now  heard  only  in  the  still  small  voice  within.”  Others 
have  taught  that  man  derived  his  idea  of  a  spirit  and  ultimately 
of  a  divinity  from  his  own  shadow.  These  are  examples  of 
theories  in  various  forms  which  agree  in  teaching  that  physical 
things  and  powers  are  the  primary  objects  of  religious  worship 
and  that  from  these  man  at  last  derives  the  idea  of  a  personal 
spirit  and  a  personal  divinity. 

This  theory  of  the  origin  of  religion  is  philosophically  improb¬ 
able.  Man  knows  himself  as  exerting  power  in  moving  outward 
objects  and  knows  them  as  resisting  his  exertion.  In  this  his 
idea  of  power  and  cause  begins.  He  knows  also  that  he  can  pro¬ 
duce  effects  with  an  instrument  external  to  his  body,  as  when  he 
knocks  off  a  nut  with  a  stick  or  stone.  He  knows  also  that  there 
is  in  him  in  all  these  acts  a  power  of  unseen  thought  and  will. 
When  he  sees  movements  of  bodies  beyond  the  reach  and  control 
of  himself  or  any  known  living  being,  he  naturally  refers  the 
effect  to  some  agent  that  thinks  and  wills  like  himself.  Thus  the 
idea  of  a  personal  spirit,  however  imperfectly  apprehended,  must 
have  been  one  of  the  first  instead  of  the  last.  It  is  going  far 
round-about  to  imagine  that  man  gets  his  idea  of  spirit  from 
physical  things  after  many  generations  of  nature-worship,  when 
all  the  time  he  has  the  idea  implicitly  in  his  consciousness  of 
himself,  and  in  this,  after  whatever  delay,  must  find  all  the  ele¬ 
ments  of  the  idea. 

The  theory  is  also  contrary  to  facts,  so  far  as  known.  The 
rudest  fetich-worshiper  believes  that  the  fetich  is  the  shrine  of  an 
unseen  divinity.  In  all  nature- worship  it  is  found  that  man  wor¬ 
ships  in  nature  an  unseen  power,  resembling  yet  transcending 
the  intelligent  and  voluntary  power  of  man,  and  while  above 
visible  nature,  directing  and  controlling  it.  This  Mr.  Iveary  un¬ 
wittingly  recognizes  when  he  says  that  the  nature-worshiper 
“  hears  the  voice  of  God  in  the  whirlwind.”  Religion  begins  as 
nature-worship,  because  the  objects  of  nature,  the  sun,  the 
heavens,  the  dawn,  the  ocean  and  rivers,  revealing  powers  be¬ 
yond  man’s  reach  and  control,  are  the  revealers  to  him  of  a 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  MAN. 


361 


power  that  is  above  nature  and  above  man,  a  power  that  is  di¬ 
vine.  And  this  power  he  conceives  of  as  a  power  that  thinks  and 
wills,  that  he  can  call  on  for  help,  that  he  can  please  or  displease. 
In  all  religions  man  recognizes  in  nature  an  intelligent,  spiritual 
power  like  his  own.  As  Pfleiderer  says  :  “  The  imagination  of 
the  childlike  man  ensouls  all  nature  ;  that  is,  treats  it,  especially 
the  phenomena  of  motion,  after  the  analogy  of  the  human  or 
animal  «  life,  between  which  he  does  not  discriminate ;  thus  he 
sees  in  every  process  the  effect  of  a  conscious  and  voluntarily  act¬ 
ing  soul.”  1  So  Ulrici  puts  it :  “  The  manifold  nature-religions 
(so  called)  from  Shamanism  and  Fetichism  up  to  the  most  de¬ 
veloped  mythical  systems,  in  the  last  ground  do  not  rest,  as  has 
commonly  been  supposed,  on  a  deification  of  mere  objects  and 
powers  of  nature,  but  have  gone  forth  from  a  perception  of  the 
Divine,  though  dim  and  undefined  ;  of  a  Power  working  behind 
the  phenomena  of  nature.  Not  till  afterwards  do  they  come  to 
regard  certain  phenomena  of  nature  as  representatives  of  this 
nameless,  divine,  original  Power,  or  to  identify  them  with  it.”  2 

It  must  be  added  that  the  theory  in  question  assumes  what  is 
impossible.  The  idea  of  spirit  cannot  originate  otherwise  than 
in  man’s  knowledge  of  it  in  himself  and  in  his  fellow-men.  If 
man  sees  the  spiritual  revealed  in  nature  it  presupposes  the 
knowledge  of  the  spiritual  in  himself.  No  lengthening  of  the 
process  of  observing  nature,  as  described  by  Mr.  Keary,  brings 
him  any  nearer  to  the  idea  of  spirit,  unless  he  carries  with  him 
the  idea  already  derived  from  his  knowledge  of  himself.  Of  a 
theory  of  this  class  Burnouf  says  :  “  It  still  remains  to  ask  how 
mankind  have  effected  this  transformation  of  a  metaphor  or  a 
dream  into  a  god,  and  what  mysterious  force  has  pushed  them 
into  making  the  transition.  ...  In  order  to  change  any  sensuous 
impression  into  a  god,  there  must  have  previously  existed  the 
idea  of  a  god.” 

With  this  the  latest  established  conclusions  of  anthropological 
investigations  agree.  The  earliest  form  of  religious  sentiment 
springs  from  the  belief  that  in  the  activities  and  powers  of  phys¬ 
ical  things,  at  least  in  those  which  no  agent  is  perceived  to  cause, 
is  a  power  intelligent  and  voluntary  like  man  directing  and  con¬ 
trolling  them.  The  position  of  Comte,  that  religion  begins  in 
fetichism,  is  no  longer  tenable.  Facts  abundantly  prove  that  the 
religions  of  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  the  religions  of  India  with 

1  Religionsphil.  pp.  277,  278. 

2  Gott  und  der  Mensch,  vol.  i.  p.  697. 


362 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


their  innumerable  incarnations,  the  religion  of  Persia,  recognize 
personal  divinities  in  and  above  the  nature-powers  in  which  they 
reveal  themselves.  And  the  best  established  conclusion  of  anthro¬ 
pology  is  that  in  fetichism  and  in  all  so  called  nature-worship,  a 
divinity  that  man  can  commune  with,  that  he  can  please  and  dis¬ 
please,  is  recognized  in  and  above  the  phenomena  and  powers  of 
nature. 

For  every  interest  of  science  and  religion  we  may  willingly  see 
the  intellectual  rabies  passing  away  which  discovered  profound 
myths  of  nature-worship  not  only  in  the  ethnic  stories  about  the 
gods,  but  also  in  folk-stories  and  nursery-rhymes,  like  those  of  the 
Milkmaid  and  of  Jack  and  Gill ;  which  discovered  in  the  Odyssey 
the  adventures  of  the  soul  after  death  in  seeking  the  abode  of  the 
blessed,  and  in  the  Iliad  the  sun-myth,  or,  as  it  has  also  been  in¬ 
terpreted,  a  profound  exposition  in  Helen  of  the  nature  and  power 
of  Greek  art.  It  supposes  that  the  primitive  peoples  could  not 
tell  a  story  or  perpetuate  a  tradition  which  was  not  saturated  with 
the  most  profound  religious  and  philosophical  significance.  They 
who  can  believe  all  this  cannot  consistently  regard  it  impossible 
that  the  imaginings  of  primitive  men  respecting  the  divinity  car¬ 
ried  in  them  anticipations  and  germs  of  rational  truth  and  pre¬ 
sentiments  of  the  true  knowledge  of  the  spiritual  and  the  divine. 

Mr.  Spencer  rejects  the  theory  that  religion  originates  in  the 
immediate  worship  of  natural  objects  and  powers,  and  maintains 
that  it  begins  in  the  worship  of  the  ghosts  of  the  dead.  Aside 
from  the  impossibility,  already  alluded  to,  of  accounting  by  this 
theory  for  the  worship  of  the  divinity  in  the  sun,  the  mountains, 
the  sky  and  other  natural  objects,  the  fatal  objection  is  that  man 
cannot  have  the  idea  of  ghosts  of  dead  ancestors  until  he  has  first 
the  idea  of  the  spirit  in  the  living  man.  And  it  is  going  a  very 
roundabout  way  through  this  absurdity  to  suppose  that  man  gets 
the  idea  of  a  spirit  from  belief  in  the  survival  of  the  spirit  of  the 
dead,  instead  of  getting  the  idea  of  spirit  and  of  its  survival  from 
his  implicit  consciousness  of  the  spiritual  in  himself. 

It  is  objected  by  some  that  the  knowledge  of  God  originated 
from  a  primitive  revelation.  This  is  true  only  in  the  sense  that 
the  primitive  knowledge  of  any  object  implies  that  the  object  has 
revealed  itself  in  some  action  on  the  man  whereby  he  perceives 
it.  The  same  is  true  of  the  primitive  revelation  of  God.  But 
this  fact,  instead  of  being  an  objection,  is  itself  decisive  proof 
that  man  is  constituted  with  capacity  to  know  God.  No  object 
can  reveal  itself  to  a  being  not  constituted  with  capacity  to  know 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  MAN. 


363 


it.  The  rose  cannot  reveal  its  sweetness  to  one  destitute  of  smell, 
nor  its  color  and  beauty  to  one  who  cannot  see.  God  cannot 
reveal  himself  to  a  dog  by  any  action  upon  him,  nor  to  any  being 
destitute  of  the  spiritual  capacity  for  religion  and  the  knowledge 
of  God.  Not  even  by  any  miracle  or  any  Christ  can  he  reveal 
himself  to  #hch  a  being. 

Muller  says  that  if  you  ask  an  Ashanti  priest  how  he  knows 
that  his  fetich  is  not  a  common  stone,  he  replies  that  the  fetich 
told  him  so.1  And  this  is  primitive  revelation,  as  the  objector 
conceives  it;  man  knows  that  the  object  of  his  worship  is  a  god 
because  the  god  told  him  so.  But  this  revelation  by  words  pre¬ 
supposes  the  idea  of  a  god  already  known  to  the  recipient  of  it. 
Just  as,  if  a  scientist  tells  me  that  a  cat  is  a  vertebrate  animal, 
the  communication  presupposes  my  knowledge  of  a  vertebrate 
animal.  The  revelation  is  thus  nullified.  This  comes  from  the 
supposition  that  a  primitive  revelation  must  be  made  in  words. 
But  it  can  be  made  only  by  the  action  of  the  object  on  the  man 
through  which  he  apprehends  the  object,  forms  an  idea  of  it  and 
then  gives  it  a  name.  The  object  must  be  revealed  before  it  can 
be  named.  Hence  a  primitive  revelation  in  words  is  impossible, 
for  it  necessarily  presupposes  the  knowledge  of  the  object  and  of 
the  meaning  of  the  words. 

But  primitive  revelation  in  its  true  significance  stands  in  no 
contradiction  to  man’s  constitutional  capacity  to  know  God,  but 
is  a  concurrent  factor  with  it  in  the  knowledge.  Revelation  to  a 
being  without  capacity  to  know  the  object  to  be  revealed  would 
impart  no  knowledge ;  and  equally  man’s  capacity  to  know  God 
would  give  no  knowledge  of  him,  if  God  never  revealed  himself 
within  the  consciousness  of  the  man  by  any  action  of  which  the 
man  could  take  cognizance.  Man  has  capacity  to  know  a  star ; 
but  he  cannot  know  it  if  it  has  never  revealed  itself  to  his  eye 
or  otherwise,  by  any  effect  of  which  the  man  can  take  cogni¬ 
zance.  As  the  star  reveals  itself  to  man  by  acting  immediately 
on  his  senses  and  by  effects  within  the  sphere  of  his  observa¬ 
tion,  so  God  reveals  himself  by  his  action  on  man’s  spirit  and 
by  effects  within  the  sphere  of  spiritual  cognizance.  Thus  reveal¬ 
ing  himself  to  the  spirit  of  man,  he  calls  into  responsive  action 
the  man’s  rational  and  moral  powers  and  susceptibilities,  his  hid¬ 
den  sense  of  the  mystery  of  the  absolute  and  the  infinite,  and 
all  his  spiritual  capacities.  Therein  begins  in  man  the  implicit 
consciousness  of  a  divinity,  and,  at  the  same  time,  of  himself  as 
1  Origin  and  Growth  of  Religion,  pp.  163,  164,  118. 


364 


THE  SELF-RE YELATION  OF  GOD. 


having  religious  capacities,  possibilities  and  needs.  Nor  does  the 
revelation  cease ;  it  is  continuous.  God  is  always  revealing  him¬ 
self  in  the  constitution  and  course  of  nature  and  in  the  consti¬ 
tution  and  history  of  man.  It  is  a  revelation,  when  man  in  the 
fulness  of  time  is  prepared  for  it,  culminating  in  Christ,  and  per¬ 
petuated  in  the  Holy  Spirit  poured  out  on  all  flesh  tc^abide  with 
men  forever. 

The  inference  from  the  whole  evidence  which  has  been  pre¬ 
sented  is  decisive  that  religion  and  the  belief  in  God  have  root  in 
the  constitution  of  man  ;  that  his  normal  development  must  bring 
him  to  the  consciousness  of  God. 

3.  Religion  and  the  belief  in  God  being  thus  constitutional 
in  man,  the  inference  is  legitimate  and  necessary  that  our  be¬ 
lief  in  God  is  a  real,  though  inadequate  knowledge  of  him.  On 
this  point  Janet  says:  “The  only  truly  philosophical  inquiry  is, 
whether  religion  is  rooted  in  the  very  nature  of  man,  or  is  but  a 
passing  and  ephemeral  state,  destined  to  disappear  when  a  higher 
degree  of  civilization  is  attained/’ 1  But  the  evidence  already  pre¬ 
sented  that  religion  is  rooted  in  the  constitution  of  man  is  deci¬ 
sive  and  incontrovertible.  God  reveals  himself  in  the  constitution 
and  consciousness  of  man.  In  man’s  normal  development  he  finds 
himself  in  the  presence  of  God.  The  inference  is  irresistible 
that  God  exists,  otherwise  man’s  constitution  normally  developed 
necessitates  the  belief  of  falsehood.  The  whole  normal  develop¬ 
ment  both  of  the  individual  and  of  society  issues  in  falsehood. 
And  the  falsehood  is  fundamental ;  for  what  is  really  nonentity 
must  be  believed  to  be  the  fundamental  ground  of  the  universe. 
Necessarily,  then,  knowledge  is  impossible  to  man  ;  for  the  human 
mind  is  discredited  as  false  in  its  constitution,  and  therefore  un¬ 
trustworthy  ;  and  since  what  we  constitutionally  believe  to  be 
the  fundamental  ground  of  all  reality  is  non-existent,  all  which 
we  believe  to  be  reality  is  equally  non-existent,  and  the  whole 
fabric  of  human  knowledge  dissolves  into  illusion. 

If  we  ask  what  is  the  origin  of  our  belief  in  the  external  world, 
we  cannot  trace  that  belief  historically  to  its  beginning ;  but  we 
know  that  the  world  reveals  itself  to  man  through  the  senses, 
and  that  this  revelation  must  have  had  its  beginning  with  the 
life  of  man  because  it  is  essential  to  his  life  on  this  earth  ;  the 
knowledge  is  as  real  as  the  life.  If  we  ask  what  is  the  origin  of 
the  bodily  appetites  and  the  natural  desires,  we  know  that  they 
must  be  commensurate  with  the  natural  life  which  cannot  go  on 

1  Theory  of  Morals,  Trans,  pp.  472,  4  73. 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  MAN. 


865 


without  them  ;  they  attest  the  laws  that  the  waste  of  the  body 
must  be  replenished  by  food,  that  man  is  made  for  society  and 
the  like.  So  religion  and  the  belief  in  God  are  commensurate 
with  the  spiritual  life  and  attest  the  reality  of  its  laws  and  of  the 
objects  with  which  the  spiritual  life  is  correlated.  From  the 
universality,  spontaneity,  power  and  persistence  of  the  belief  in 
a  divinity,  we  learn  that  it  is  a  common  characteristic  of  hu¬ 
manity  and  is  rooted  in  the  constitution  of  man.  For  the  reli¬ 
gious  person  it  is  unnecessary  to  go  further ;  because  in  his  own 
experience  he  already  knows  God.  The  Christian  believer’s  con¬ 
sciousness  of  God’s  grace  permeates  his  whole  spiritual  being,  as 
the  blood-vessels  permeate  the  body  so  that  the  prick  of  a  pin 
anywhere  draws  blood ;  to  renounce  the  faith  which  has  been 
quickened  by  it  would  be  to  renounce  all  that  he  esteems  highest 
and  best  in  his  history,  all  that  is  vitalizing  in  his  spiritual  life. 
And  now  we  see  also  that  religious  belief  is  a  normal  develop¬ 
ment  of  the  constitution  of  man  as  a  personal  being. 

Of  course  it  is  not  meant  that  every  form  in  which  men  have 
constructed  in  thought  their  idea  of  the  divinity  is  constitutional 
in  man  and  warranted  as  real  knowledge ;  but  only  those  essen¬ 
tial  elements  in  the  idea  of  a  divinity  already  mentioned,  the 
absolute  or  infinite  and  the  spiritual  or  supernatural.  And  these 
are  not  at  first  apprehended  as  ideas  and  defined  in  thought,  but 
they  are  present  submerged  in  feelings,  impulses,  wishes  and  in¬ 
stincts,  undiscriminated  and  undefined  in  the  primitive  conscious¬ 
ness. 

It  follows  that  religion  lives  in  the  personality  and  life  of 
man.  If  so,  then  religion  will  persist  through  all  human  prog¬ 
ress,  will  survive  all  convulsions  and  catastrophes,  will  revive 
after  all  degeneracy  and  be  a  power  in  some  form  in  every  con¬ 
dition  of  society. 

III.  God  revealed  as  personal  spirit  in  the  consti¬ 
tution  OF  MAN  AS  SHOWN  BY  ITS  analysis.  —  God  is  re¬ 
vealed  in  the  constitution  of  man  as  a  personal  being.  The 
existence  of  the  personal  God  is  presupposed  in  the  normal  exer¬ 
cise  of  man’s  constitutional  powers  and  susceptibilities,  and  the 
belief  of  it  is  a  legitimate  and  necessary  issue  of  the  normal 
development  of  the  constitution  of  man  as  a  personal  being. 

From  the  fact  that  belief  in  a  divinity  is  a  common  trait  of 
humanity  and  is  spontaneous,  powerful  and  persistent,  it  has  been 
inferred  that  it  has  root  in  the  constitution  of  man  and  that  our 
belief  in  God  is  a  real  knowledge  of  him.  We  are  now  to  exam- 


366 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


ine  the  constitution  of  man  itself  to  see  if  we  find  in  it  confirma¬ 
tion  of  this  inference  and  evidence  of  the  revelation  of  God  in  the 
constitution  of  man. 

1.  The  personal  God  is  revealed  in  man’s  intellectual  or 
rational  constitution. 

The  existence  of  the  personal  God,  the  absolute  Reason,  is  a 
necessary  postulate  of  all  ratiocinated  and  scientific  knowledge. 
Its  presupposition,  explicit  or  implicit,  is  necessary  to  the  human 
intellect  in  order  that  it  may  complete  its  processes,  solve  its 
inevitable  problems  and  properly  discharge  its  functions ;  and 
the  reality  of  God’s  existence  is  necessary  to  the  reality  of  the 
knowledge  thus  attained. 

Because  nature  comprises  innumerable  objects  existing  in  the 
unity  of  the  physical  system,  which  extends  immeasurably  in 
space  and  time,  physical  science,  which  is  the  knowledge  of 
nature,  must  postulate,  consciously  or  unconsciously,  one  univer¬ 
sal  reason  regnant  through  all  time  and  space,  with  which  human 
reason  is  in  unison  as  the  same  in  kind.  If  rational  intelligence 
is  not  the  same  throughout  the  universe,  if  the  rational  principles 
on  which  human  science  rests  its  conclusions  are  not  the  same 
through  all  space  and  time,  if  the  mathematics  by  which  it  com¬ 
putes  are  not  the  same  everywhere  and  always,  if  the  same  com¬ 
bination  of  causes  does  not  always  produce  the  same  effect,  then 
physical  science  has  no  certainty  and  scientific  knowledge  is  im¬ 
possible.  The  spectroscope  shows  us  that  matter  is  the  same  in 
the  sun  and  stars  as  on  the  earth,  the  all-pervading  ether  binds 
all  the  physical  universe  together  in  its  all-penetrating  action, 
the  laws  of  gravitation  and  of  the  persistence  of  force,  of  mechan¬ 
ics  and  of  chemistry  are  the  same  through  all  nature.  But  this 
is  so  only  if  the  principles  of  human  reason  are  universal,  regu¬ 
lating  thought  and  action  throughout  all  space  and  time.  Then 
if  physical  science  is  real  knowledge,  the  universe  is  pervaded  by 
Reason  that  is  universal,  that  is  everywhere  and  always  the 
same  ;  and  this  absolute  Reason  not  only  pervades  the  universe, 
but  is  everywhere  and  always  regnant  in  it,  and  all  things  reveal 
its  presence,  direction  and  control.  If,  as  we  are  sometimes 
told,  mind  is  the  last  and  highest  product  of  nature,  evidentlv  its 
presence  and  direction  in  nature  is  also  the  first  presupposition 
in  physical  science.  If  evolution  has  culminated  in  evolving 
rational  man,  it  is  evident  that  Reason,  like  man’s,  is  revealed  in 
the  whole  process  of  the  evolution,  controlling  and  directing  it. 
This  conclusion  —  and  how  can  any  one  who  thinks  avoid  it?  — 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  MAN. 


367 


is  well  expressed  by  Professor  Benjamin  Peirce  of  Harvard,  at 
the  conclusion  of  his  Analytic  Mechanics :  “  In  these  researches 
there  is  one  lesson  which  cannot  escape  the  profound  observer. 
Every  portion  of  the  material  universe  is  pervaded  by  the  same 
laws  of  mechanical  action,  which  are  incorporated  into  the  very 
constitution  of  the  human  mind.  The  solution  of  the  problem 
of  this  universal  presence  of  such  a  spiritual  element  is  obvious 
and  necessary.  There  is  one  God  and  Science  is  the  knowl¬ 
edge  of  him.” 

In  addition  to  this  it  may  be  said  that  man’s  consciousness  of 
himself  seems  to  rest  on  a  basis  of  universality ;  for  it  is  in  the 
perception  of  outward  objects  that  he  is  awakened  to  conscious¬ 
ness  of  himself.  He  knows  the  outward  world  as  distinct  from 
himself,  and  at  the  same  time  as  related  to  and  acting  on  himself. 
He  thus  is  conscious  of  himself  as  a  centre  to  the  universe  about 
him.  It  encompasses  him  and  from  every  side  exerts  its  energies 
upon  him,  while  he  at  the  centre  reacts  in  every  direction  on 
it,  apprehends  it  in  intelligence,  illuminates  it  with  science,  and 
effects  changes  in  it.  Man  knows  himself  only  as  in  the  midst  of 
the  universal  system,  himself  and  it  in  reciprocal  action  and  re¬ 
action.  Science  as  knowledge  is  subjective  within  the  mind  of 
man  ;  and  as  knowledge  it  is  equally  the  knowledge  of  the  uni¬ 
verse  as  objective  reality.  The  objective  reality  of  the  universe 
is  involved  in  man’s  knowledge  of  himself,  and  the  reality  of 
of  himself  is  involved  in  his  knowledge  of  the  universe.  The 
knowledge  of  both  is  given  in  one  and  the  same  act;  if  one  is 
real  so  must  the  other  be ;  if  one  is  unreal,  the  other  must  be 
unreal  also,  and  all  knowledge,  scientific  or  unscientific,  becomes 
impossible.  Thus  the  consciousness  of  self  rests  on  a  basis  of 
universality.  The  knowledge  of  the  universal  is  involved  in  the 
knowledge  of  one’s  self.  And  from  this  point  of  view,  as  always, 
the  mystery  of  objective  knowledge,  that  a  mind  can  apprehend 
outward  objects  which  are  unlike  itself,  points  unmistakably  to 
the  fact  that  the  universe  is  itself  the  expression  of  the  universal 
Reason,  which  is  the  absolute  basis  of  all  that  is  and  in  the  light 
of  whose  eternal  intelligence  man  participates ;  “  the  true  light, 
which  lighteth  every  man.” 

It  must  also  be  noticed  that  the  universal  is  always  revealed 
in  the  particular.  It  is  not  merely  that  the  multitude  of  partic¬ 
ular  things  in  nature  requires  the  postulation  of  absolute  reason 
universally  the  same  ;  it  is  not  merely  that  the  consciousness  of 
self  involves  the  knowledge  of  the  universal ;  but  in  the  com- 


868 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


pleted  knowledge  of  every  particular  thing  the  universal  is 
presupposed.  The  particular  cannot  be  known  apart  from  the 
universal;  it  must  be  known  in  its  relations  to  the  universal  as 
well  as  in  its  particular  individuality.  The  individual  is  the 
synthesis  of  the  particular  and  the  universal.  In  all  particular 
qualities  we  find  the  category  of  substance.  Each  reveals  in  the 
consciousness  the  universal  principle  that  all  phenomena  are  the 
phenomena  of  being,  or  in  other  words  the  qualities  of  substance.. 
In  every  change  we  see  the  effect  of  a  cause ;  every  change  re¬ 
veals  in  the  consciousness  the  universal  principle  of  reason  that 
every  beginning  or  change  has  a  cause.  In  every  mechanical 
adaptation  the  universal  axioms  and  demonstrated  conclusions  of 
mathematics  are  revealed.  In  every  conscious  free  act  of  man 
the  universal  moral  law  is  postulated.  Thus  in  all  knowledge  of 
the  particular  or  the  individual,  universal  principles  are  involved 
and  the  absolute  and  universal  reason  is  revealed. 

In  previous  investigations  we  have  considered  the  fundamental 
ideas  of  reason,  which  are  the  norms  or  standards  of  all  rational 
thought  and  action.1  In  every  case  in  which  any  one  of  these  is 
regulative  of  thought  and  action,  the  universal  is  revealed  in  the 
particular. 

The  first  of  these  is  the  True,  the  contrary  of  which  is  the 
absurd.  This  is  the  norm  or  standard  of  thinking  and  knowing. 
In  knowing  the  particular  and  the  individual  we  come  in  sight 
of  truths  universal  and  necessary,  which  no  thought  can  overleap 
and  no  power  break  down,  which  must  be  true  of  all  reality  to 
which  they  pertain  through  all  space  and  all  time.  In  the  con¬ 
sciousness  of  these  truths  illuminating  and  regulating  our  thought 
and  action  we  find  ourselves  face  to  face  with  the  universal  rea¬ 
son  in  the  completed  knowledge  of  every  particular.  Thus  it  is 
true  of  our  intellectual  life  that  God  is  not  far  from  every  one 
of  us  ;  that  in  him  intellectually  we  live  and  move  and  have  our 
being. 

The  second  of  the  fundamental  ideas  of  reason  is  the  Right, 
the  norm  or  standard  of  all  efficient  action.  What  is  true  to 
the  reason  is  a  law  to  action.  The  scientific  knowledge  of  any 
physical  reality  includes  the  knowledge  both  of  it  and  the  law  of 
its  action.  Every  individual  agency  in  the  universe  reveals  to 
science  the  reign  of  universal  law.  And  in  every  consciously 
free  action  the  agent  is  conscious  of  obligation  to  do  right,  and 
therein  is  conscious  of  the  imperative  of  absolute  and  universal 

1  Phil.  Basis  of  Theism,  pp.  180-182. 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  MAN. 


369 


law.  Therein  the  absolute  Reason  speaks  within  the  soul  of  the 
person  and  reveals  itself  in  his  conscience  as  authoritative.  Every 
moral  act  has  immediate  relation  to  the  law  of  God.  It  is  only 
as  we  know  that  relation,  it  is  only  as  thus  the  universal  reveals 
itself  in  the  particular  that  the  essential  significance  of  the  act  is 
known.  There  is  philosophical  truth  in  the  bold  personifications 
of  the  Bible,  that  the  blood  of  Abel  crieth  unto  God  from  the 
ground ;  and  that  the  hire  of  the  laborers  who  have  reaped  your 
fields,  which  is  of  you  kept  back  by  fraud,  crieth;  and  the  cries 
of  them  who  have  reaped  are  entered  into  the  ears  of  the  Lord  of 
Sabaoth.  In  the  moral  consciousness  of  every  man  is  the  revela¬ 
tion  of  God.  In  it  appear  in  his  consciousness  the  great  realities 
of  his  immediate  relation  to  the  universal,  the  eternal  and  the 
absolute  ;  of  his  membership  in  the  universal  moral  system  ;  of 
his  having  to  do  with  God  in  obeying  or  disobeying  the  eternal 
law  of  divine  wisdom  and  love  which  is  the  constitution  of  the 
universe.  Man’s  conscience  is  the  reflex  of  God’s  law  and  of  the 
moral  constitution  of  the  universe. 

The  same  is  true  of  the  rational  idea  of  the  Perfect.  Beauty 
is  the  revelation  in  some  concrete  object  of  an  ideal  of  perfection. 
An  ideal  can  be  realized  only  in  the  expression  of  rational  truth 
and  in  conformity  with  rational  law ;  with  the  norms  or  stand¬ 
ards  by  which  reason  judges,  as  perfect  or  imperfect,  all  crea¬ 
tions  of  thought  and  their  realization  whether  in  nature  or  art. 
Thus  in  every  beautiful  object,  in  every  noble  character,  in  every 
creation  of  art,  the  universal  is  essential  in  the  significance  of  the 
particular  and  the  absolute  Reason  is  revealed. 

Plato  says  that  God  geometrizes.  He  creates  the  universe  as 
the  expression  of  archetypal  truth  and  in  accordance  with  exact 
laws.  For  the  very  reason  that  he  does  so,  he  creates  it  beauti¬ 
ful.  The  beautiful  is  always  the  revelation  of  the  ideally  per¬ 
fect  ;  and  this  is  a  creation  accordant  with  rational  law  and 
expressive  of  rational  truth.  If  therefore  God  is  a  geometrician 
he  is  in  a  similar  sense  an  artist.  Therefore  nature  is  not  only 
the  revelation  of  science  but  also  of  the  ideal  and  the  beautiful ; 
and  the  science  and  the  beauty  are  alike  the  revelation  of  the 
universal  in  the  particular.  In  the  universe  science  reads  God’s 
thoughts  after  him ;  art  expresses  those  thoughts  in  human  cre¬ 
ations,  as  God  has  expressed  them  in  the  divine.  In  this  sense 
there  is  truth  in  the  seemingly  extravagant  assertion  of  Qui- 
net :  “  The  divine  Spirit  is  the  model  which  under  one  form 
or  another  poses  eternally  before  the  mind  of  the  true  artist. 5 


370 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


True  art  must  express  the  truth  that  is  universal,  in  the  finite, 
the  particular  and  the  concrete.  If  the  artist  attends  solely  to 
the  universal,  he  creates  nothing ;  his  work  is  void.  If  he  con¬ 
fines  himself  to  the  finite  and  particular,  his  creation  reveals  no 
ideal  significance  and  has  no  beauty.  The  creations  of  true  art, 
whether  human  or  divine,  are  revelations  of  the  universal  truth 
of  reason  in  the  particular  and  the  individual. 

“  What  here  as  beauty  has  been  shown, 

In  some  hereafter  will  as  truth  be  known.”  1 

Man  finds  relations  between  himself  and  the  universe  which  the 
senses  do  not  perceive  and  which  cannot  be  defined  in  the  exact 
formulas  of  physical  science.  The  sun,  moon  and  stars,  which 
the  astronomer  describes  in  the  exact  results  of  mathematical  cal¬ 
culations,  reveal  to  the  soul  a  grandeur  which  no  Mecanique  Ce¬ 
leste  defines,  and  which  nevertheless  without  the  underlying  math¬ 
ematical  exactness  would  never  have  been  revealed.  The  rainbow 
and  the  soft  and  changing  tints  of  the  clouds,  which  the  optician 
analyzes  in  his  prism,  reveal  to  the  heart  a  reality  which  prismatic 
analysis  cannot  reveal  or  define.  And  because  the  universe  is 
full  of  beauty  it  is  as  truly  apprehended  in  poetry  as  in  science. 

“  The  world  is  full  of  poetry  ;  the  air 
Is  living  with  its  spirit ;  and  the  waves 
Dance  to  the  music  of  its  melodies 
And  sparkle  in  its  brightness.  ” 

And  what  poetry  finds  in  the  universe  is  reality.  It  is  the  truths 
of  the  eternal  Reason  revealed  in  the  forms  of  the  finite.  Poetry 
reading  in  the  universe  the  ideals  of  the  universal  Reason  finds 
reality,  as  truly  as  science  does  in  reading  its  principles  and  laws. 
Each  in  its  own  way  finds  the  truths  which  are  universal  revealed 
in  the  forms  and  combinations  of  finite  individuals.  The  flowers 
which  in  their  blended  gold  and  purple  repeat  the  colors  of  the 
morning  sky,  reveal  in  their  beauty  the  ideals  of  the  eternal  mind. 
And  when  the  flower  “  blossoming  so  meekly  ”  is  considered  also 
in  the  light  of  science,  when  we  see  the  wonders  of  wisdom  in  its 
organic  structure  and  life,  when  we  see  it  as  the  representative  of 
its  species  in  its  relations  to  all  the  orders  and  genera  of  plant- 
life  and  in  its  place  in  the  whole  vegetable  system,  when  we  con¬ 
template  it  as  a  product  of  all  cosmic  forces  concentrated  on  it 
during  its  growth,  building  its  complicated  and  delicate  structure, 

1  “  Was  wir  als  Schonheit  hier  empf unden, 

Wird  einst  als  Wahrheit  uns  entgegen  gehn.” 

Schiller,  Die  Kiinstler ,  stanza  5. 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  MAN. 


371 


painting  it  with  harmonious  colors,  and  infusing  into  it  fragrance, 
our  feelings  rise  above  the  aesthetic  to  the  religious.  Then  we 
are  ready  to  bow  before  the  commonest  plant,  as  Milton  repre¬ 
sents  Eve  bowing  before  the  tree  of  knowledge,  with 

“  low  reverence  done,  as  to  the  Power 
That  dwelt  within,  whose  presence  had  infused 
Into  the  plant  sciential  sap,  derived 
From  nectar,  drink  of  the  gods;  ” 

and  we  acknowledge  that  the  words  of  Wordsworth  are  not  ex¬ 
travagant  :  — 

“  To  me  the  meanest  flower  that  blows  can  gdve 

‘CJ 

Thoughts  that  do  often  lie  too  deep  for  tears.” 

Here  then  is  revealed  a  world  within  a  world,  a  system  within 
a  system,  the  spiritual  system  veiled  by  the  natural  yet  revealed 
through  it ;  and  therein  revealing  to  the  spiritual  eye  the  true 
significance  and  worth  of  the  natural.  The  heavens  and  the 
earth  declare  the  glory  of  God.  The  revealed  glory  is  indeed 
broken,  obstructed  and  mingled  with  shadows  and  darkness,  as 
the  light  of  the  sun  is  broken,  obstructed  and  mingled  with  shad¬ 
ows  and  darkness  by  the  earth  and  the  opaque  bodies  on  which 
it  falls,  and  refracted  by  the  media  through  which  it  passes.  But 
the  revelation,  though  never  complete,  is  always  progressive  to¬ 
wards  the  complete  expression  of  the  archetypal  thought  of  the 
absolute  Reason,  of  the  perfect  wisdom  and  love  of  God. 

So  also  as  to  the  Good,  as  to  all  which  may  be  acquired,  used 
and  enjoyed,  reason  judges  by  its  unchanging  principles  what  is 
worthy  of  the  pursuit  and  enjoyment  of  a  rational  being  and  has 
true  worth.  In  all  human  enterprise  and  acquisition  it  is  only  in 
the  light  of  the  truths,  laws  and  ideals  of  reason  that  we  can 
know  what  is  the  true  good  ;  and  thus  in  the  common  pursuits  of 
life  the  universal  is  revealed  in  the  particular  and  all  are  in  im¬ 
mediate  connection  with  God,  the  universal  Reason. 

It  has  also  been  shown  that  the  normal  development  of  human 
reason  issues  in  the  necessary  belief  that  the  absolute  Being 
exists.  The  existence  of  the  absolute  Being  is  a  necessary  postu¬ 
late  in  all  scientific  thought  and  all  rational  knowledge.  If  any 
being  exists,  some  eternal,  unconditioned  and  all -conditioning 
Being  must  exist.  If  this  is  not  so,  rational  knowledge  is  im¬ 
possible.  Thus  the  absolute  and  unconditioned  is  revealed  in 
everything  finite  and  conditioned. 

Another  point  to  be  noticed  is  that  the  existence  of  God,  the 
absolute  Reason,  is  essential  to  the  possibility  of  comprehending 


372 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


all  reality  in  the  unity  of  a  rational  system.  It  is  the  function  of 
thought  to  integrate  or  comprehend  in  a  unity  the  objects  which 
it  apprehends  and  distinguishes  ;  and  it  cannot  rest  till  it  compre¬ 
hends  all  known  reality  in  the  unity  of  a  rational  system.  This 
is  possible  only  in  the  recognition  of  the  absolute  Reason  as  the 
ultimate  ground  of  all  reality  and  the  universe  as  the  manifesta¬ 
tion  or  revelation  of  it.  Without  this,  science  remains  incom¬ 
plete,  thought  remains  hopelessly  disintegrated,  and  human  rea¬ 
son,  unable  to  solve  its  necessary  problems,  is  exposed  as  incom¬ 
petent,  untrustworthy  and  deceiving. 

A  further  evidence  that  God  exists,  found  in  the  intellectual 
constitution  of  man,  is  the  fact  that  theism  alone  gives  the  ra¬ 
tional  ground  for  the  trustworthiness  of  the  human  mind  and  the 
reality  of  human  knowledge. 

All  science  rests  on  certain  immense  assumptions.  As  we  have 
repeatedly  had  occasion  to  notice,  science  assumes  that  the  uni¬ 
verse  is  reasonable  ;  that  it  admits  of  being  known  and  accounted 
for  by  rational  intelligence.  The  absurd  cannot  be  real ;  the  real 
cannot  be  absurd.  Science  also  assumes  the  uniformity  and 
continuity  of  nature ;  that  the  same  complex  of  causes  always 
produces  the  same  effect.  Nature  is  in  this  sense  truthful  and 
trustworthy;  the  same  observed  facts  justify  the  same  inference 
everywhere  and  always.  Another  assumption  of  science  is  that 
rational  intelligence  is  the  same  throughout  all  space  and  time.. 
Without  these  assumptions  all  rational  knowledge  of  the  universe 
is  impossible,  and  the  attempt  by  investigation  to  get  a  scientific 
knowledge  of  it  is  foolish.  But  how  does  this  prove  that  the  as¬ 
sumptions  are  valid?  What  warrant  have  we  for  believing  that 
we  must  be  capable  of  knowing?  The  answer  is  that  the  reality 
of  knowledge  is  known  in  the  act  of  knowing.  But  here  again  it 
is  not  pretended  that  we  prove  the  reality  of  knowledge.  Knowl¬ 
edge  is  verified  only  by  knowledge.  All  we  can  do  is  to  verify 
knowledge  derived  from  one  source,  by  one  mental  act  or  process, 
with  knowledge  of  the  same  thing  from  other  sources  or  by  other 
mental  acts  or  processes  of  knowing.  Thus  we  come  back  to  a 
primitive,  immediate  and  ineradicable  confidence  in  the  trustwor¬ 
thiness  of  the  human  mind  as  rational  and  intelligent  and  in  the 
reality  of  human  knowledge.  Whatever  issues  in  universal  skep¬ 
ticism  must  be  rejected  as  false.  Or,  as  Mr.  Fiske  expresses  it  : 
“  It  puts  us  to  permanent  intellectual  confusion,  and  I  do  not  see 
that  any  one  has  as  yet  alleged  or  is  ever  likely  to  allege  a  suffh 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  MAN. 


373 


cient  reason  for  our  accepting  so  dire  an  alternative.”  1  Science 
without  God  can  go  no  farther.  We  cannot  but  accept  as  true 
what  our  whole  mental  constitution  demands.  We  must  accept 
that,  the  denial  of  which  implies  that  man’s  whole  mental  consti¬ 
tution  is  untrustworthy. 

Theism  gives  us  a  reasonable  ground  for  all  these  fundamental 
assumptions  on  which  the  possibility  of  science  and  the  reality  of 
knowledge  rest.  It  affirms  that  the  universe  is  grounded  in  abso¬ 
lute  Reason,  and  in  this  rationality  man  as  a  personal  being  par¬ 
ticipates.  Then  he  knows  that  every  part  of  the  universe  open 
to  his  observation  is  the  expression  of  rational  intelligence  like 
his  own ;  that  the  universe  is  everywhere  and  always  reasonable 
and  intelligible ;  that  nature  as  the  expression  of  the  thought  of 
perfect  reason  is  uniform  and  continuous,  and  that  thus  nature  is 
truthful  and  trustworthy,  its  facts  the  data  for  legitimate  and 
conclusive  reasoning  and  its  phenomena  susceptible  of  rational 
explanation.  Thus  he  finds  an  immovable  basis  for  the  reality 
of  human  knowledge.  The  conclusion  is  inevitable,  that,  if  the 
universal  Reason,  which  is  the  personal  God,  does  not  exist  and 
man  is  not  endowed  with  reason  the  same  in  kind,  then  we  are 
put  to  permanent  intellectual  confusion.  Thus  the  existence  of 
God  is  necessary  to  the  possibility  of  science  and  to  the  trustwor¬ 
thiness  of  the  human  reason  and  to  the  possibility  of  rational  in¬ 
telligence.2 

The  ultimate  ground  of  the  universe  cannot  be  truth  or  thought 
abstracted  from  being.  It  must  be  Reason  energizing,  the  per¬ 
sonal  Spirit,  the  personal  God.  A  recent  writer  says :  u  The 
skeptic  has  always  instinctively  posited  Being  as  the  ground  of 
thought.  .  .  .  Its  medicine  and  cure  is  Speculative  Philosophy, 
which,  as  immanent  Logic,  recognizes,  not  in  Being  but  in 
Thought,  the  ground  of  all  natural  objects  and  of  all  conscious 
subjects ;  which  sees  that  it  is  Thought  from  whose  fulness  Be¬ 
ing  is  projected  as  an  isolated  radius  or  single  moment,  and  that 
this  single  moment  comes  to  actuality  only  in  connection  with  all 
the  other  moments  of  the  inclusive  Totality.”  But  in  seeming 
contradiction  to  this  the  writer  says  in  the  same  article  :  “  If  only 
we  were  able  to  realize  that  Thought  is  the  purest  transfigura¬ 
tion  and  clearest  self-explication  of  Being  —  that  in  it  Being 
comes  to  itself  by  turning  itself  inside  out  and  reflecting  itself  in 
itself ;  if  we  could  become  conscious  of  thought  in  its  height  and 

1  The  Destiny  of  Man,  p.  116. 

2  Phil.  Basis  of  Theism,  pp.  8,  82,  143-151,  182  f.,  198-203. 


374 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


depth  and  fulness,  we  could  never  question  whether  to  this  in¬ 
most  thought  belonged  the  outwardness  of  being.  .  .  .  He  who 
has  learned  to  think  Thought  as  the  coming  to  itself  of  Being  can 
never  doubt  that  the  thinking  subject  belongs  essentially  to 
and  is  inseparable  from  Thought ;  without  the  thinking  subject, 
Thought  cannot  be.”  1  This  can  be  consistent  with  the  passage 
first  quoted  only  on  the  supposition  that  thought  is  the  original 
and  being  the  derivative  from  it.  But  if  thought  is  the  transfig¬ 
uration  and  self-explication  of  being,  then  being  as  transfiguring 
and  explicating  itself  is  prior  to  the  thought.  If  thought  cannot 
be  without  a  thinking  subject,  then  the  thought  must  be  pred¬ 
icated  of  the  thinker  not  the  thinker  predicated  of  the  thought ; 
it  is  the  thinker  who  puts  forth  the  thought  not  the  thought 
which  develops  the  thinker.  The  thought  may  reveal  to  himself 
the  being  who  thinks,  but  it  cannot  create  the  being.  The  hu¬ 
man  mind  must  revolt  from  the  Spinozism  which  postulates  sub¬ 
stance  alone  as  the  ground  of  the  universe,  or  being  that  is  inde¬ 
terminate  and  identical  with  nothing.  But  the  postulating  of 
thought  as  the  ground  of  all  being  is  using  words  without  intelli¬ 
gible  meaning.  It  exemplifies  the  common  error  of  Hegelianism 
in  confounding  real  being  and  its  energies  and  activities  with 
processes  of  logic,  and  makes  the  ultimate  ground  of  the  universe 
to  be  a  general  notion  or  name.  Thus  it  loses  itself  in  a  maze 
of  logical  processes  and  abstract  words.  In  the  present  case  the 
fallacy  seems  to  be  that  because  logically  the  definition  of  thinker 
includes  and  presupposes  the  idea  of  thought,  therefore  the 
thought  must  precede  the  thinker  and  be  the  ground  of  his  being. 

If  thought  could  be  the  ground  of  the  universe,  we  could  no 
longer  recognize  a  God  who  has  any  real  being,  but  instead  of 
God  we  should  have  only  abstract  thought  and  laws,  subjective 
in  human  intelligence ;  for  there  would  be  no  absolute  Reason 
to  which  they  could  be  referred ;  and  this  grandiose  philosophy 
issues  in  dissolving  the  universe  into  a  mental  illusion,  with  no 
person  that  is  the  subject  of  the  illusion. 

The  necessary  conclusion  is  that  the  ultimate  ground  of  the 
universe  is  not  abstract  substance  or  indeterminate  beiim,  nor  is 
it  abstract  thought  or  intelligence ;  it  is  the  two  in  unity,  the 
absolute  Reason,  the  eternal  Spirit,  the  personal  God.  All  finite 
beings  are  derived  from  him  and  reveal  his  thought  and  power. 
Material  things  and  physical  forces  are  products  and  manifesta¬ 
tions  of  the  eternal  Spirit  and  reveal  his  power  and  intelligence, 

1  Goeschel  in  The  Journal  of  Speculative  Philosophy,  Jan.  1884,  pp.  27,  24 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  MAN. 


375 


his  wisdom  and  love.  Thought  is  before  all  finite  beings,  but  it 
is  eternal  in  the  absolute  Being  who  is  God.  In  him  all  truth, 
all  law,  all  ideals  of  perfection,  and  all  rational  forms  of  worth 
which  determine  what  is  the  true  good,  are  eternal.  Eternal  in 
him  are  also  the  power  which  energizes  and  the  wisdom  and  love 
which  guide  and  characterize  his  energizing  in  the  progressive 
realization  of  all  archetypal  truth,  law,  ideals  and  good  in  the 
finite  universe  and  the  progressive  revelation  thereby  of  himself 
as  perfect  in  power,  wisdom  and  love.  So  Bossuet,  after  speak¬ 
ing  of  mathematical  and  other  necessary  and  universal  truths  of 
reason,  says  :  “Were  all  which  I  see  in  nature  destroyed,  except 
myself,  these  principles  would  be  preserved  in  my  thought ;  and 
I  see  that  they  would  be  always  true  were  I  annihilated.  If  I 
now  ask  where  and  in  what  subject  these  eternal  and  immutable 
truths  subsist,  I  am  obliged  to  admit  a  Being  in  whom  truth  is 
eternal.  It  is  from  him  that  the  truth  in  all  the  universe  is  de¬ 
rived.  It  is  in  him,  in  some  manner  incomprehensible  by  me, 
that  I  see  these  eternal  verities.  To  see  them  is  to  turn  myself 
to  him  who  is  immutably  all  truth,  and  to  receive  his  light/’ 1 

2.  In  the  moral  constitution  of  man  as  a  free  agent  there  is 

. -  #  ^ 

a  revelation  of  God.  The  existence  of  God  is  necessary  to  any 

reasonable  explanation  of  man’s  free  will. 

The  evidence  of  the  existence  of  God  already  found  in  man’s 
rational  constitution  reappears  in  his  constitution  as  free  will. 
Man  is  constituted  free  by  his  rationality.  By  virtue  of  this  he 
is  able,  in  the  light  of  reason  and  under  the  influence  of  rational 
motives,  to  determine  the  ends  to  which  he  will  direct  his  ener¬ 
gies  and  his  exertion  of  them  for  the  determined  end,  and  thus 
is  self-directive  and  self-exertive,  and  therein  is  free.  Will  is 
reason  energizing,  and  reason  is  will  potential.  If,  then,  human 
reason  and  rational  knowledge  presuppose  the  existence  of  God, 
the  absolute  Reason,  so  also  the  will,  which  is  free  only  as  it  is 
rational,  must  presuppose  the  same. 

1  Traitd  de  la  Connaissance  de  Dieu  et  de  soi  meme,  chap.  iv.  (Euvres,. 
tome  x.  p.  82. 

“The  ultimate  point  on  which  all  necessity”  (must  be)  “rests  is  there¬ 
fore  a  partnership  of  thought  and  being.  What  is  an  element  of  the  thought 
must  be  conversely  an  immediate  element  of  being.  We  could  call  this  ulti¬ 
mate  point,  if  the  expression  were  not  used  in  manifold  meanings,  the  iden¬ 
tity  of  thought  and  being.”  “  Hegel  calls  the  Ego  the  universal  because  the 
particular  objects  fall  into  his  consciousness,  and  he  thinks,  because  the  man 
thinks  the  universal,  that  the  man  himself  is  the  universal.”  —  Trendelenburg,, 
Logische  Untersuchungen,  vol.  ii.  pp.  116,  122. 


376 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


Further,  if  the  universe  is  not  ultimately  grounded  in  free¬ 
dom,  it  is  impossible  that  freedom  should  ever  come  into  it.  If 
the  universe  is  ultimately  grounded  in  necessity,  everything  in 
it  must  also  be  under  necessity.  If  it  is  grounded  in  the  im¬ 
personal  and  the  non-rational,  rational  persons  could  never  have 
appeared  in  it.  The  appearance  of  a  rational  being  would  then 
be  an  effect  without  a  cause. 

A  third  evidence  is  found  in  the  fact  that  the  consciousness  of 
free  will  involves  the  consciousness  of  moral  responsibility  and 
obligation.  So  soon  as  one  knows  that  he  has  anything  at  his 
own  free  disposal,  he  is  conscious  that  he  is  responsible  for  his 
disposal  of  it.  When  he  is  conscious  that  he  is  free  to  choose  or 
refuse,  he  is  conscious  of  responsibility  for  his  action  and  of  obli¬ 
gation  to  act  reasonably.  Here  we  are  brought  again  to  the  full 
force  of  the  ethical  evidence  of  the  existence  of  God.  Man  finds 
himself  in  a  moral  system  under  the  government  of  God.  In  the 
sense  of  moral  responsibility  and  obligation  he  is  brought  into 
immediate  consciousness  of  the  absolute  moral  law  and  of  the 
presence  and  command  of  the  absolute  Reason.  He  hears  within 
the  voice  of  conscience  :  — 

“  As  God’s  most  intimate  Presence  in  the  soul, 

And  his  most  perfect  image  in  the  world.’’ 

In  the  consciousness  of  freedom  man  also  becomes  conscious  of 
the  world  as  hemming  him  in,  limiting  and  hindering  his  action. 
As  free  he  finds  himself  in  conflict  with  necessity,  imprisoned 
within  physical  limits  and  overpowered  by  physical  forces,  sub¬ 
jected  to  privation  and  evil,  tempted  to  wrong-doing,  conscious 
of  himself  as  a  sinner  and  the  subject  of  self-condemnation.  He 
feels  the  need  of  God,  as  a  rescuer  and  helper  in  the  free  con¬ 
duct  of  his  life,  to  deliver  him  from  subjection  to  necessity  under 
nature,  and  to  lift  him  to  the  higher  sphere  of  spiritual  life  in 
which  he  may  find  harmony  and  peace  and  real  freedom.  In  the 
consciousness  of  freedom  man  must  assert  and  maintain  it  against 
restraining  and  constraining  powers  and  against  hindrances  within 
himself  to  carrying  into  effect  all  that  reason  commands  and  the 
will  determines  to  do.  And  this  reveals  to  him  his  need  of  divine 
help  and  drives  him  to  God  for  redemption.  Religion  is  a  neces¬ 
sity  to  bring  into  reconciliation  man’s  consciousness  of  himself  as 
free  and  yet  as  dependent  on  nature,  held  down  and  resisted  by 
its  forces,  tempted  to  sin  and  plunged  into  evil. 

Finally,  in  his  choice  of  God  as  the  supreme  object  of  trust  and 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  MAN. 


377 


service,  the  man  finds  himself  inspired  with  divine  influence  and 
quickened  to  new  and  spiritual  life  ;  in  faith  in  God  his  spirit 
glows  with  universal  love.  As  in  his  own  reason  he  participates 
in  the  light  of  the  divine  reason,  so  in  the  new  spiritual  life  he 
participates  in  the  love  of  God,  and  thus  knows  in  his  own  spirit 
what  is  highest  in  the  divine.  And  complying  with  an  apostle’s 
injunction,  “  Keep  yourselves  in  the  love  of  God,”  he  overcomes 
the  world,  he  wins  the  victory  over  its  opposing  forces,  he  finds 
reconciliation  and  peace,  and  the  freedom  wherewith  Christ 
maketh  free. 

3.  That  man  is  constituted  for  the  knowledge  and  service  of 
God  is  evident  from  his  susceptibility  to  spiritual  motives  and 
emotions.  God  reveals  himself  to  man  through  his  feeling. 

A  boy  was  flying  his  kite  at  dusk,  and  in  the  gathering  dark¬ 
ness  it  soared  out  of  sight.  A  by-stander  told  him  it  was  lost ; 
but  the  boy  replied  :  “  No,  I  feel  it  pull.”  And  from  beyond  our 
sight  the  invisible  things  of  God  have  hold  on  us  and  in  our 
hearts  we  feel  them  pull. 

In  a  former  chapter  we  have  seen  that  the  susceptibilities  to 
motives  and  emotions  are  the  sensitive  points  through  which 
what  is  without  us  can  affect  us  and  make  us  aware  of  its  pres¬ 
ence.  The  sunshine  falling  on  the  eye  reveals  itself  as  light  ; 
vibrations  of  air  falling  on  the  ear  reveal  themselves  as  sound  ; 
falling  on  any  other  parts  of  the  body  they  cannot  make  these 
peculiar  revelations  of  themselves  in  the  consciousness.  So  the 
other  senses  and  all  natural  appetites,  desires  and  affections  are 
sensitive  spots  through  which  outward  objects  can  reveal  them¬ 
selves  in  the  consciousness.  God  and  the  system  of  spiritual 
beings  are  man’s  spiritual  environment.  His  susceptibilities  to 
rational  and  spiritual  motives  and  emotions  are  the  points  of 
spiritual  sensitivity  through  which  God  and  spiritual  beings  can 
make  themselves  felt  and  present  themselves  as  spiritual  in  the 
consciousness.  To  change  the  figure,  they  are  the  windows  and 
doors  through  which  the  light  of  the  eternal  Reason  can  shine  in 
and  the  vitalizing  warmth  and  air  of  heaven  can  quicken  the 
spirit. 

For  this  reason  knowledge  comes  in  and  through  feeling  ;  and 
in  the  primitive  and  implicit  consciousness,  belief,  feeling  and 
preference  exist  undiscriminated  together.  The  same  is  true  of 
the  primitive  spiritual  consciousness,  in  which  beliefs  and  ques¬ 
tionings,  fears  and  hopes,  aspirations  and  affections,  purposes  and 
preferences  lie  undiscriminated  together,  a  seed-plot  full  of  di- 


378 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


verse  seeds,  each  of  which  in  the  process  of  germination  will  come 
to  light  in  its  specific  character.  It  is  this  primitive  spiritual 
consciousness  which  W ordswortli  presents  :  — 

“  those  obstinate  questionings 
Of  sense  and  outward  things, 

Fallings  from  us,  vanishings; 

Blank  misgivino-s  of  a  creature 
Moving  about  in  worlds  not  realized, 

High  instincts  before  which  our  mortal  nature 
Did  tremble  like  a  guilty  thing  surprised; 

.  .  .  those  first  affections, 

Those  shadowy  recollections, 

Which,  be  they  what  they  may, 

Are  yet  the  fountain-light  of  all  our  day, 

Are  yet  a  master-light  of  all  our  seeing; 

Uphold  us,  cherish  and  have  power  to  make 
Our  noisy  years  seem  moments  in  the  being 
Of  the  eternal  Silence;  truths  that  wake 
To  perish  never.” 

We  are  now  to  examine  what  are  the  susceptibilities  to  re¬ 
ligious  motives  and  emotions  in  the  constitution  of  man,  and  to 
consider  whether  these  give  reasonable  grounds  for  believing  that 
man  is  constituted  for  the  knowledge  and  service  of  God  and  that 
God  manifests  himself  in  human  consciousness  through  them. 

God  is  the  absolute  Spirit.  The  feelings  which  are  distinc¬ 
tively  religious  are  those  arising  in  response  to  man’s  conscious 
relation  to  a  divinity.  They  will  therefore  have  reference  to  the 
divinity  as  absolute  Being,  and  also  as  personal  Spirit.  It  has  al¬ 
ready  been  shown  that  in  all  religions  some  traces  of  the  con¬ 
sciousness  of  the  divinity  in  both  these  aspects  have  been  found. 

We  begin  with  feelings  responsive  to  the  presence  of  the  in¬ 
finite  and  absolute. 

Man  must  have  been  far  advanced  before  the  idea  of  the  ab¬ 
solute  or  infinite  was  expressed  in  language  or  apprehended  in 
thought.  But  the  reality  denoted  by  the  words  must  have  im¬ 
pressed  itself  on  him  from  the  beginning.  When  man  found 
himself  naked,  without  shelter  or  defense,  without  tools  or 
weapons  amid  the  mighty  powers  of  nature,  he  must  have  been 
conscious  of  the  presence  of  beings  and  agencies  beyond  his  com¬ 
prehension  and  transcending  his  power.  Muller  in  explaining 
the  origin  of  the  sense  of  the  infinite  supposes  a  man  living  on 
a  high  mountain,  or  in  a  vast  plain,  or  on  a  coral  island  sur¬ 
rounded  by  the  sea  and  sky.  The  supposition  is  unnecessary. 
Wherever  primitive  man  may  have  dwelt,  he  found  himself  in 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  MAN. 


379 


the  midst  of  agencies,  whose  power  so  far  as  he  could  see  was  un¬ 
controlled  and  unlimited  ;  and  these  must  have  impressed  him 
with  some  sense  of  the  superhuman,  the  immeasurable,  the  in¬ 
finite  as  the  ever-present  background  of  his  life. 

One  sentiment  awakened  would  be  wonder.  Plato  says  that 
wonder  is  the  origin  of  philosophy.  He  thinks  that  he  was  not 
a  bad  genealogist  who  said  that  Iris,  knowing  all  the  secrets  of 
the  gods  and  bearing  their  messages,  was  the  daughter  of  Thau- 
mas  (Wonder).1  It  is  a  feeling  in  which  the  soul  responds  to 
the  presence  of  the  absolute  or  infinite,  and  a  presentiment  of  the 
idea  not  yet  formed.2  We  see  it  still  in  the  freshness  with  which 
life  and  nature  present  themselves  to  a  child  and  in  the  wonder 
awakened  by  it.  In  the  cradle-song,  — 

‘  ‘  Twinkle,  twinkle,  little  star, 

How  I  wonder  what  you  are,” 

the  wondering  child  utters  in  view  of  the  starry  heavens  one 
of  the  feelings  in  which  religion  began.  And  in  its  craving  for 
something  above  its  earthly  life  it  delights  in  myths  and  fairy- 
stories,  peopling  the  earth  and  heavens  with  superhuman  beings, 
whose  place  no  history,  however  interesting,  not  even  Robinson 
Crusoe  or  other  fictions  of  strange  adventures  of  men  can  fill. 
J.  S.  Mill,  with  all  his  hard  and  practical  views  of  life,  intimates 
as  occasion  of  alarm  that  in  this  generation  the  young  are  for  the 
first  time  growing  up  unromantic. 

So  in  the  primitive  men  there  must  have  been  a  sense  of  the 
infinite  in  the  feelings  before  the  idea  was  defined  in  thought  or 
named  in  language;  a  sense  of  a  presence  in  nature  above  and 
beyond  all  that  was  perceived  through  the  senses,  above  and  be¬ 
yond  man  himself.  In  the  progress  of  man  there  was  wonder 
at  the  vastness  of  the  world  before  geometry ;  poetry  before  sci¬ 
ence  ;  the  sense  of  obligation  felt  as  law  in  the  heart  before  the 
law  graven  on  the  tables  of  stone  or  in  any  way  formulated  in 
words  ;  spontaneous  religion  before  theological  definition  ;  and 
in  numberless  forms  the  dumb  consciousness  of  the  absolute  be¬ 
fore  the  idea  was  defined  or  even  named.  This  is  set  forth  by 
Schiller :  “  What  first  after  thousands  of  years  had  passed  the 
aging  reason  found  out,  from  the  beginning  lay  revealed  to  the 

1  Thesetetus,  155. 

2  We  need  in  English  a  word  corresponding  with  the  German  “  ahnung.” 
“  Presentiment  ”  refers  only  to  what  is  future.  The  German  word  denotes 
any  intimation  of  reality  in  any  obscure  and  indefinite  feeling  or  state  of  con¬ 
sciousness,  without  reference  to  time. 


380 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


childlike  understanding  in  the  symbols  of  the  beautiful  and  the 
grand.  Its  gracious  form  called  us  to  love  virtue,  a  tender  feeling 
rose  up  against  vice,  before  a  Solon  wrote  the  law  which  slowly 
urges  on  the  languishing  blossoms.  Before  the  bold  idea  of  eter¬ 
nal  space  presented  itself  to  the  thinker’s  mind,  who  that  looked 
up  into  the  starry  heavens  did  not  already  feel  a  presentiment  of 
it?”1 

The  feeling  responsive  to  the  absolute  as  it  is  always  manifest¬ 
ing  itself  in  the  universe  is  not  mere  wonder.  In  the  presence 
of  the  transcendent  and  resistless  powers  of  nature,  the  wonder 
must  have  deepened  into  awe. 

Another  feeling  awakened  must  have  been  fear.  Humboldt 
says:  “It  lies  deep  in  the  troubled  mind  of  man,  in  his  gloomy 
view  of  things,  that  the  unexpected  and  extraordinary  excite  only 
fear,  not  hope  or  joy.”  2  It  is  a  remark  of  Comte  that  the  most 
terrible  feeling  of  which  man  is  capable  is  consternation,  the  feel¬ 
ing  arising  when  the  uniform  order  of  nature  seems  to  be  inter¬ 
rupted.  Such  is  the  peculiar  feeling  occasioned  by  an  earthquake, 
when  all  which  we  have  regarded  as  most  stable  is  shaken,  and 
the  man  feels  himself  torn  from  his  fixed  moorings  and  helpless 
in  the  power  of  unknown,  unmeasured  and  incalculable  forces. 
This  feeling  must  have  been  common  among  the  primitive  men. 
Scarcely  knowing  a  uniform  course  of  nature,  ignorant  of  the 
causes  of  almost  all  changes,  everything  must  have  been  to  them 
strange  and  incalculable.  Surrounded  by  savage  beasts,  amid  the 
primeval  forest  which  they  could  not  cut  down,  hemmed  in  on  the 
uncultivated  and  intractable  earth  by  impassable  rivers,  moun¬ 
tains  and  seas,  suffering  the  extremes  of  heat  and  cold,  trembling 
before  the  lightning  and  the  thunder,  smitten  by  the  force  of  fierce 
and  invisible  winds  and  by  the  rain,  the  snow  and  the  hail,  pros¬ 
trated  by  unseen  and  unaccountable  powers  in  disease  and  sink¬ 
ing  in  death,  they  must  often  have  felt  terror  and  consternation 
at  the  resistless  powers  acting  upon  and  about  them. 

1  “Was  erst,  nachdem  Jahrtausende  verflossen, 

Die  alternde  Vernunft  erfand, 

Lag  im  Symbol  des  Schonen  und  des  Grossen, 

Voraus  geoffenbart  dem  kindischen  Verstand. 

Ikr  holdes  Bild  hiess  uns  die  Tugend  lieben, 

Ein  zarter  Sinn  hat  vor  dem  Laster  sich  gestraubt, 

Eh  noch  ein  Solon  das  Gesetz  geschrieben, 

Das  matte  Bliithen  langsam  treibt. 

Eh  vor  des  Denkers  Geist  der  kiihne 
Begriff  des  ew’gen  Ranmes  stand  — 

Wer  sah  hinauf  zur  sternenbiihne, 

Der  ihn  nicht  ahnend  schon  empfand?  ”  — Die  Kiinstler. 

2  Cosmos,  vol.  i.  p.  Ill,  Otte’s  Translation. 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  MAN. 


381 


And  the  sense  of  the  absolute  is  always  present  to  man  in  the 
mystery  of  the  universe.  Mystery  presses  close  upon  the  primi¬ 
tive  man ;  it  envelops  him  like  a  fog.  As  he  advances  towards 
civilization,  though  the  mystery  recedes,  it  never  passes  out  of 
sight.  If  the  fog  lifts  a  little,  a  larger  circle  of  it  is  seen.  Every 
advance  which  discloses  a  larger  area  of  the  known,  discloses  also 
a  proportionally  larger  horizon  of  the  unknown.  Through  all  his 
progress  from  savagery  to  the  highest  civilization  man  has  always 
the  mystery  of  the  infinite  and  the  absolute  in  full  view.  The 
more  the  finite  universe  is  disclosed  to  his  knowledge,  the  larger 
is  the  horizon  along  the  circuit  of  which  he  looks  on  the  mystery 
of  the  absolute,  and  the  grander  his  appreciation  of  its  signifi¬ 
cance.  Hence  Muller  does  not  speak  too  strongly  when  he  says 
of  the  perception  of  the  infinite :  “  From  the  first  flutter  of  human 
consciousness  that  perception  underlies  all  the  perceptions  of  our 
senses,  all  our  imaginations,  all  our  concepts  and  every  argument 
of  our  reason.  It  may  be  buried  for  a  time  beneath  the  frag¬ 
ments  of  our  finite  knowledge,  but  it  is  always  there,  and  if  we 
dig  deep  enough  we  shall  always  find  that  buried  seed,  as  supply¬ 
ing  the  living  sap  to  the  fibres  and  feeders  of  all  true  faith.”  1 

There  is  therefore  no  reason  to  expect  that  man  in  the  growth 
of  knowledge  and  culture  will  ever  outgrow  his  religion.  The 
religious  sentiment  has  a  perennial  root  in  his  wonder,  awe  and 
fear  in  the  presence  of  the  infinite  and  the  absolute.  Man  wonders 
at  first  at  the  extraordinary  and  the  incomprehensible.  As  in  his 
progress  the  unknown  becomes  known,  in  all  which  is  known  he 
wonders  at  its  continuity  and  uniformity,  its  order  and  law ;  and 
in  all  that  is  explained,  he  wonders  at  the  significance  disclosed 
in  the  explanation.  This  all-encompassing  mystery,  enlarging  its 
circuit  with  the  enlarging  area  opened  to  human  knowledge,  can 
be  neither  removed,  nor  transcended  and  explained  by  physical 
science.  In  its  attempts  to  explain  even  the  physical  universe  by 
empirical  methods  and  to  comprehend  it  by  physical  agents  and 
processes  and  their  factual  sequences,  physical  science  ultimately 
breaks  down  in  contradictions,  and  reveals  its  own  insufficiency, 
and  the  necessity  of  recognizing  spiritual  powers  and  a  spirit¬ 
ual  system  transcending  matter  and  its  forces  and  processes,  and 
transcending  the  factual  sequences  and  the  empirical  methods  of 
physical  science. 

Of  such  higher  powers  man  is  conscious  in  himself ;  for  he  is 
conscious  of  himself  as  person  or  spirit.  As  spirit  he  is  conscious 

1  Origin  and  Growth  of  Religion,  p.  48. 


382 


THE  SELF-EEYELATION  OF  GOD. 


of  himself  as  supernatural,  as  in  some  sort  a  miracle-working 
power.  As  Goethe  says:  “Man  alone  can  effect  the  impossible.” 
When  confronted  and  confounded  by  what  is  impossible  to  sense 
and  empirical  thought  and  to  the  unconscious  forces  of  nature, 
as  by  a  dead  wall  which  he  cannot  scale,  he  looks  on  himself  as 
a  rational  spirit  and  sees  himself  as  a  power  that  can  transcend 
it.  In  his  reason  he  can  know  what  it  is  impossible  for  sense  and 
empirical  thought  about  sensible  objects  to  know;  in  his  freedom 
he  can  do  what  it  is  impossible  for  the  unconscious  forces  of 
nature  to  do.  He  is  above  nature,  supernatural.  While  he  has 
not  power,  even  as  spiritual,  fully  to  comprehend  what  the  abso¬ 
lute  Being  is,  and  can  never  transcend  the  horizon  of  the  mys¬ 
terious,  yet  he  can  know  the  absolute  as  absolute  Spirit ;  he  can 
recognize  spiritual  energies  and  spiritual  truths,  laws,  ideals  and 
ends  pervading  and  regulating  the  physical  system ;  he  can 
comprehend  the  universe  as  the  progressive  expression  in  the 
finite  of  the  archetypal  thought  of  the  inexhaustible  wisdom  and 
love  of  the  absolute  Spirit ;  and  thus  he  attains  a  rational  expla¬ 
nation  why  it  is  that  man's  knowledge  of  the  universe  must  be 
always  bounded  by  mystery. 

We  proceed  to  inquire  what  spiritual  sentiments  in  man  are 
responsive  to  the  presence  of  the  absolute  Spirit.  For  the  abso¬ 
lute  is  not  an  abstraction  and  cannot  be  revealed  as  such.  It  is 
revealed  as  absolute  Being.  Hence  it  is  only  in  view  of  the 
concrete  realities  of  the  universe  that  the  sense  of  the  absolu-te 
and  infinite  is  felt,  as  of  absolute  Power  and  Being  beneath  all 
that  is  known  as  finite.  In  man  as  himself  spirit,  God  is  re¬ 
vealed  as  absolute  Spirit. 

The  sentiments  responsive  to  the  presence  of  the  absolute 
Spirit  are,  first,  those  motives  and  emotions  which  correspond 
with  the  four  fundamental  ideas  or  norms  of  reason ;  the  true, 
the  right,  the  perfect  and  the  good. 

The  first  class  of  these  is  the  scientific  motives  and  emotions, 
the  desire  to  know  the  truth  and  joy  in  its  discovery,  not  for  its 
uses  and  gains  but  for  the  truth  itself.  It  is  the  yearning  of  the 
soul  to  know  the  secret  of  the  universe,  to  find  its  origin  and 
author,  its  significance  and  laws  and  end,  and  to  comprehend  it 
in  the  unity  of  a  rational  system.  It  is  the  longing  of  man  that 
the  mute  forces  of  nature  would  break  their  eternal  silence  and 
tell  him  whence  they  are  and  for  what  end  they  work  and  rest 
not  through  all  the  ages,  and  to  what  destiny  they  are  bearing 
him.  It  is  his  longing  as  he  gazes  wistfully  on  the  firmament  to 
see  that 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  MAN. 


883 


“  All  heaven  bursts  her  starry  floors, 

And  strews  her  light  below, 

And  deepens  on  and  up,” 

till  it  reveals  the  secret  of  the  universe.  Professor  Tyndall  tells 
us  that  from  the  beginning  man  has  been  seeking  the  origin  of 
things,  and  that  the  desire  impelling  to  this  search  has  been  the 
great  motive  to  intellectual  activity  and  scientific  investigation. 
And  Mr.  Tylor  says:  “Man’s  craving  to  know  the  causes  at 
work  in  each  event  he  witnesses,  the  reasons  why  each  state  of 
things  he  surveys  is  such  as  it  is  and  no  other,  is  no  product  of 
high  civilization,  but  a  characteristic  of  his  race  down  to  its 
lowest  stage.  Among  rude  savages  it  is  already  an  intellectual 
appetite,  whose  satisfaction  claims  many  of  the  moments  not  en¬ 
grossed  by  war,  or  sport  or  sleep.”1 

Hence  the  sense  of  intellectual  suffocation  under  materialism 
and  atheism,  in  the  consciousness  of  the  restriction  of  the  range 
and  freedom  of  the  intellect  and  the  suppression  of  its  energy. 
Atheism  belittles  man  and  the  sphere  of  his  knowledge.  It  was 
a  great  enlargement  of  the  range  of  human  thought  when  astron¬ 
omy  burst  the  crystal  firmament  and  opened  the  depths  of  space 
crowded  with  suns.  But  if  science  shall  shut  out  God  and  all 
spiritual  realities,  then  it  contracts  the  sphere  of  thought  more 
than  it  had  enlarged  it  ;  then  science  itself  comes  down  on  us  as 
a  solid  firmament,  and  shuts  us  closely  in.  A  solid  firmament, 
with  God  and  heaven  above  it,  his  law  and  love  and  redeeming 
grace  revealing  him  beneath,  is  a  grander  theatre  of  thought,  as¬ 
piration  and  endeavor,  in  which  the  soul  can  expatiate  with  a 
larger  freedom  and  a  nobler  development,  than  the  open  and  sun- 
thronged  vast  of  space  in  which  no  supreme  reason  guides,  no  di¬ 
vine  love  rules,  no  aspiration  to  know  God  and  to  be  like  him 
inspires  the  animated  clods  which  for  a  little  time  eat,  drink 
and  propagate,  enjoy  and  suffer,  and  then  crumble  into  dust. 
Then  man  himself  is,  as  Pindar  calls  him,  “  a  dream  about  a 
shadow ;  ”  2  and  we  must  adopt  as  scientific  truth  the  pathetic 
words  of  Burke  after  the  death  of  his  son  :  “  What  shadows  we 
are  and  what  shadows  we  pursue.”  Professor  Tyndall  in  his 
Belfast  Address  tells  of  a  man  who  said  to  him  :  “  Did  I  not 
believe  that  an  Intelligence  is  at  the  heart  of  things,  my  life  on 
earth  would  be  intolerable.”  The  author  of  The  Keys  of  the 
Creeds  says  that  he  has  had  himself,  and  that  it  is  not  unusual 

1  Primitive  Culture,  vol.  i.  p.  332. 

2  Pindar,  Pvtk.  viii.  135. 


384 


THE  SELF-RE VEL ATION  OF  GOD, 


for  persons  to  have  such  intense  longing  to  know  the  secrets  of 
the  universe  as  to  feel  almost  irresistibly  prompted  to  hasten  the 
termination  of  life  in  order  to  penetrate,  unrestrained  by  the  lim¬ 
itations  of  sense,  the  world  that  lies  beyond.1  And  ingenuous 
minds,  when  they  have  found  their  belief  in  God  giving  way, 
have  in  many  instances  given  utterance  to  the  deepest  sadness 
as  they  have  seen  the  shades  of  their  prison-house  closing  on  them 
and  the  light  of  all  their  day  shut  out  by  the  dead  walls  in  which 
they  were  finding  themselves  immured. 

This  undying  and  urgent  desire  to  know  the  secret  of  the 
universe  is  inherent  in  the  constitution  of  man  and  is  one  of  the 
roots  of  his  religiousness.  Through  it  God  reveals  himself  in 
the  human  soul  as  rational  Spirit,  awakening  the  spontaneous 
and  ineradicable  belief  that  the  universe  is  rationally  intelligible 
and  explicable,  and  the  inextinguishable  desire  to  know  its 
rational  ground,  law,  unity  and  design  ;  a  desire  which  can  be 
satisfied  only  in  knowing  God,  the  absolute  Reason,  whose  wisdom 
and  love  the  universe  expresses. 

The  next  class  of  feelings  in  which  the  spirit  of  man  is  responsive 
to  the  presence  of  the  absolute  Spirit  is  the  moral  sentiments  ;  the 
sense  of  obligation,  remorse  for  wrong-doing,  and  the  peace  which 
suffuses  the  soul  in  the  consciousness  of  doing  right.  Sclienkel 
says  :  “In  the  conscience  the  human  spirit  is  conscious  of  itself, 
but  of  itself  in  its  relation  to  God.  It  is  the  place  in  the  human 
spirit  in  which  it  finds  in  itself  the  absolute  Spirit,  in  which  it  is 
conscious  of  itself  in  that.”  2  In  the  moral  sentiments  man  feels 
the  pressure  of  absolute  law,  the  imperative  of  an  absolute  au¬ 
thority.  As  he  not  merely  knows  his  connection  with  the  phys¬ 
ical  system  but  also  feels  it  in  the  weight  of  his  body,  in  its 
resistance  to  his  action,  in  cold  and  heat,  so  he  not  only  knows 
his  connection  with  the  spiritual  system  and  with  God  but  he 
feels  it  in  all  his  moral  sentiments.  This  appears  not  only  in  the 
sense  of  obligation  but  also  in  the  prevalent  consciousness  of  sin 
and  guilt.  The  prominence  in  the  religions  of  the  world  of  acts 
of  penance  and  sacrifice,  of  expiation  and  propitiation,  reveal  a 
prevalent  consciousness  of  guilt  and  a  fearful  looking  for  of  judg¬ 
ment.  The  worshipers  feel  their  immediate  relation  to  the  di¬ 
vinity  as  their  moral  lawgiver  and  judge.  Lenormant  thinks 
that  we  can  also  trace  in  these  religions  a  consciousness  of  the 
need  of  redemption  from  guilt  and  sin,  and  a  hope  of  it.  He  re¬ 
fers  to  the  common  mythical  conception  of  a  young  god  appear- 

1  Pages  4,  5.  2  Quoted  by  Voigt,  Fundamentaldogmatik,  p.  73. 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  MAN. 


385 


ing  as  savior  and  mediator,  allying  himself  with  man  and  con¬ 
summating  his  work  of  salvation  by  passing  through  suffering  and 
death.  While  admitting  that  these  myths  have  a  reference  to 
changes  in  nature  he  adds :  “  One  cannot  but  acknowledge  that 
they  also  include  ...  a  feeble  reflex  of  the  divine  promise  made 
to  man  immediately  after  the  fall.  The  Christian  cannot  afford 
to  despise  a  single  one  of  these  intuitions,  which  are  vague  and 
incomplete,  but  not  the  less  providential  for  that  reason,  and 
which  shine  out  here  and  there  amid  the  darkness  of  paganism. 
It  is  always  this  expectation  of  a  redeemer,  this  aspiration  toward 
a  higher  spiritual  law,  toward  the  reign  of  a  juster  and  more 
merciful  god,  which  was  never  completely  extinguished  in  the 
souls  of  the  nations  crushed  beneath  the  weight  of  bloody,  mate¬ 
rialistic  and  fatalistic  religions.”  1  Thus,  in  the  moral  motives 
and  emotions,  is  a  root  in  the  human  constitution  of  the  religious¬ 
ness  of  man. 

Man’s  constitutional  religiousness  has  a  root  also  in  the  feelings 
which  pertain  to  the  idea  of  the  Perfect. 

Man  admires  in  his  fellow-man  power  and  excellence  of  any 
kind  when  it  approaches  to  his  ideal  of  perfection.  He  admires 
courage,  fortitude,  energy,  self-forgetfulness  and  self-sacrifice, 
magnanimity  and  gentleness  in  the  use  of  power,  the  whole  assem¬ 
blage  of  qualities  which  constitute  heroism. 

In  the  earliest  times  physical  strength  and  agility  were  most 
admired,  and  the  strong,  swift  man  was  the  hero.  In  all  ages 
men  admire  power  of  intellect  and  achievement,  irrespective  of 
moral  character.  The  man  of  power  is  the  hero  and  hero-wor¬ 
ship  never  ceases.  The  weak  gravitate  toward  the  strong  ;  the 
admiration  passes  over  into  reverence  and  the  reverence  into  trust 
and  service.  The  powerful  man  has  always  a  following.  In  this 
way  the  Nimrods,  the  mighty  hunters  of  men,  command  adher¬ 
ents  who  do  their  bidding  in  their  schemes  of  self-exaltation,  and 
while  assisting  them  to  desolate  the  earth,  are  themselves  led  to 
destruction. 

But  as  man  advances  in  development,  the  intellect  gradually 
1  Beginnings  of  History,  pp.  170,  171,  Trans. 

Rev.  Dr.  W.  Ashmore,  a  missionary  in  China,  in  a  recent  public  address  as 
reported,  testified  of  his  long  experience  as  to  common  ground  in  natural  reli¬ 
gion  between  the  Christian  missionary  and  the  heathen  about  him.  He  testi¬ 
fied  to  the  belief  of  the  Chinese  in  divine  mercy,  and  to'  some  vague  idea  of 
redemption  from  the  divine  punishment  of  wrong-doing.  He  expressed  the 
conviction  that  the  heathen  have  not  only  the  law  of  nature,  but  to  a  certain 
degree  the  gospel  of  nature. 

25 


886 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


rises  above  the  physical  strength,  and  the  inoral  more  and  more 
takes  precedence  of  both.  Then  wisdom  and  incorruptible  integ¬ 
rity  become  essential  elements  in  the  hero.  Man  admires  hero¬ 
ism  in  virtue.  This  indeed  he  has  always  done ;  but  the  virtue 
becomes  more  and  more  prominent  and  is  coming  to  be  demanded 
as  essential.  Man  admires  the  martyr  who  values  truth  and 
righteousness  more  than  life.  He  admires  the  good  man  in  the 
beauty  and  nobleness,  the  purity  and  sweetness,  the  beneficent 
self-devotion  and  energy,  the  truthfulness  and  strong  integrity  of 
his  character.  In  the  progress  of  man  he  more  and  more  de¬ 
mands  these  qualities  in  the  person  whom  he  is  to  admire  as  a 
hero.  This  admiration  may  easily  pass  over  into  reverence,  trust 
and  service.  And  he  naturally  ascribes  in  full  perfection  to  the 
divinity  the  qualities  which  he  admires  as  perfections  in  men.  In 
the  lower  stages  of  development  physical  strength  and  agility  are 
most  admired  and  the  strong  man  is  the  hero ;  then  the  god  may 
be  Thor  with  his  hammer.  As  he  advances  heroes  of  all  kinds 
may  find  place  in  his  pantheon.  But  in  the  progress  of  man  he 
comes  to  appreciate  intellectual  skill  and  moral  excellence ;  and 
at  last  forms  the  idea  of  God  as  the  all-perfect  Spirit. 

Man  feels  also  aesthetic  admiration  of  the  beauty  and  grandeur 
of  nature.  In  the  emotion  of  sublimity,  in  which  some  sugges¬ 
tion  of  the  infinite  and  absolute  in  its  mysterious  grandeur  comes 
upon  the  soul,  the  admiration  passes  into  awe.  In  the  emotion 
of  the  beautiful  it  is  an  ideal  of  the  rational  spirit  which  is  re¬ 
vealed.  To  feel  the  beauty  of  the  waving  wheat  is  to  be  con¬ 
scious  of  other  interest  in  it  than  that  it  is  food  for  the  body. 
The  emotion  of  beauty  does  not  unfold  into  the  religious  and  im¬ 
ply  a  consciousness  of  God  so  obviously  as  do  those  which  we 
have  considered.  Yet  the  religion  of  the  Greeks  was  largely  a 
religion  of  beauty.  In  beauty  of  form  and  of  combinations  in 
nature  and  in  the  human  body  they  saw  the  divine.  And  in 
every  age  admiration  of  beauty  is  closely  akin  to  reverence  and 
adoration,  and  may  lead  to  it.  It  is  mistaken  for  it,  or  perhaps 
is  really  an  obscure  form  of  religious  reverence,  in  those  who 

“  Worship  nature  in  the  hill  and  valley, 

Not  knowing  what  they  love.” 

There  is  a  philosophical  ground  for  this.  Beauty  is  the  revela¬ 
tion  of  an  ideal  of  perfection ;  and  the  ideally  perfect  has  no 
meaning  except  as  related  to  some  standard  of  truth  and  law  in 
the  reason.  And  because  beauty  is  unintelligible  except  as  man¬ 
ifesting  an  ideal,  all  beauty  implies  the  looking  on  us  through 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  MAN. 


387 


nature  of  the  rational  mind  that  pervades  all  nature.  The  emo¬ 
tions  of  the  beautiful  are  a  response  in  the  soul  of  man  to  a  reve¬ 
lation  of  God.  And  as  all  ideals  of  the  beautiful  as  well  as  all 
principles  of  truth  and  laws  of  action  are  eternal  and  archetypal 
in  the  absolute  Reason,  it  was  with  true  philosophical  insight  as 
well  as  with  true  religious  fervor  that  Augustine  apostrophized 
God  :  “  O  Beauty,  ancient  yet  ever  new,  why  have  I  found  thee 
so  late  ?  ” 

The  fourth  fundamental  idea  of  reason,  the  Good,  arises  on 
occasion  of  man’s  experience  of  pleasure  and  pain,  of  joy  and  sor¬ 
row.  Here  perhaps  his  most  remarkable  characteristic  is  his  dis¬ 
satisfaction  and  discontent.  He  is  always  reaching  out  for  some¬ 
thing  beyond  what  he  has.  In  the  life  of  selfish  desire,  however 
successful  in  his  pursuit,  he  is  never  satisfied  ;  however  great  his 
acquisitions  he  has  never  enough.  Desire  is  an  uneasiness  in  the 
sense  of  want.  But  the  desire  is  intensified  in  the  exertion  to 
gain  its  object ;  its  gratification  is  but  fuel  to  a  fire ;  it  grows  by 
what  it  feeds  on.  For  this  reason  it  can  never  be  satisfied;  its 
uneasiness  can  never  be  removed.  Therefore  if  the  man,  who 
lives  only  to  gratify  selfish  desire,  is  not  disappointed  of  the  ob¬ 
jects  of  his  pursuit,  he  is  disappointed  in  them  ;  vanity  of  vani¬ 
ties,  all  is  vanity,  is  found  imprinted  on  all  his  acquisitions,  and 
pessimism  becomes  his  legitimate  theory  of  life.  Philosophy, 
poetry  and  religion  in  all  ages  have  united  in  declaring  man’s 
dissatisfaction  and  discontent,  in  bewailing  the  emptiness  and 
transitoriness  of  earthly  good,  and  in  picturing  man  as  a  stranger 
and  a. pilgrim  on  earth.  But  the  brutes  are  contented  with  their 
earthly  condition  and  satisfied  with  the  gratification  of  their 
sensuous  wants.  “  Doth  the  wild  ass  bray  when  he  hath  grass  ? 
or  loweth  the  ox  over  his  fodder  ?  ” 

In  this  discontent  with  his  condition  and  acquisitions,  this  felt 
insufficiency  of  all  which  satisfies  the  natural  desires,  we  see 
man’s  obscure  consciousness  that  he  has  powers  for  a  higher 
sphere  of  action  and  capacities  for  a  higher  good  ;  that  he  is  re¬ 
lated  to  something  that  transcends  sense  and  the  limits  of  an 
earthly  life.  In  the  development  of  animal  life  we  see  the  crea¬ 
ture  moved  by  impulses  the  meaning  of  which  it  does  not  under¬ 
stand,  but  which  are  necessary  to  the  preservation  and  growth 
of  the  animal  or  the  continuance  of  the  species.  Such  is  the  un¬ 
easiness  impelling  a  bird  to  build  its  nest,  and  the  uneasiness 
which  afterwards  impels  it  to  brood  on  the  eggs  ;  the  uneasiness 
which  impels  a  duck  to  go  into  the  water,  and  the  new-born 


388 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


mammal  to  suck.  Hunger  is  the  witness  in  the  sensarium  to  the 
law  that  in  organic  beings  food  is  necessary  to  repair  waste  and 
to  sustain  life.  So  in  the  spirit  of  man  uneasiness  and  restlessness 
amid  the  satisfaction  of  sensuous  and  physical  wants  are  impulses 
to  that  which  is  essential  to  the  spiritual  life  ;  and  this  can  be 
satisfied  only  in  communion  and  harmony  with  God.  Religion 
has  root  in  the  contradiction  between  the  insufficiency  of  earthly 
and  sensuous  good  and  the  aspirations  of  the  spirit  for  what  is 
untransitory,  spiritual  and  divine.  It  has  root  in  man’s  discon¬ 
tent,  and  is  inherent  in  his  personality  ;  it  is  a  necessary  result 
of  his  being  a  spirit  or  person  who  distinguishes  himself  from 
nature  and  knows  himself  above  it. 

An  example  of  this  spiritual  instinct  is  the  aspiration  for  ex¬ 
istence  after  death  and  the  spontaneous  belief  in  it.  The  senses 
show  that  all  that  have  organic  life,  from  man  to  the  lowest 
fungus,  die.  Yet  man  longs  and  hopes  and  expects  to  live  be¬ 
yond  the  grave.  He  may  try  hard  to  convince  himself  that  no 
such  existence  awaits  him  ;  but  the  belief  of  it  or  at  least  the 
hope  or  the  fear  of  it  persists.  He  thinks  himself  convinced  that 
there  is  no  existence  and  no  righteous  retribution  for  sin  after 
death ;  he  persuades  himself  that  it  is  only 

“  The  giant-shadow  of  our  awful  fear 
Upon  the  mirror  of  our  conscience  thrown.”  1 

But  before  he  is  aware  his  thought  is  again  struggling  to  pene¬ 
trate  the  dimness  of  the  hereafter  and  his  soul  is  gloomed  with 
the  shadow  of  eternity. 

“  Who  forged  that  other  influence, 

That  heat  of  inward  evidence, 

By  which  he  doubts  against  the  sense  ? 

“  Here  sits  he  shaping  wings  to  fly; 

His  heart  forbodes  a  mystery ; 

He  names  the  name  Eternity.” 

Connected  with  the  idea  of  the  Good  are  the  feelings  of  self- 
respect,  of  honor  and  shame,  of  the  worthy  and  unworthy.  Even 
the  desire  of  happiness  must  be  estimated  in  the  light  of  reason, 
and  enjoyment  and  its  sources  judged  as  worthy  or  unworthy  of 
the  pursuit  of  a  rational  being.  In  the  light  of  reason  man  is 
ashamed  of  himself  for  seeking  unworthy  objects  and  finding  en¬ 
joyment  in  them.  He  rejects  with  scorn  the  greatest  pleasures, 

1  “  Der  Riesenschatten  unsrer  eignen  Schrecken 
Im  hohlen  Spiegel  der  Gewissensangst.” 

Schiller,  Resignation. 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  MAN. 


389 


if  they  are  derived  from  unworthy  sources  or  are  obtained  by  un¬ 
worthy  actions  or  on  unworthy  conditions.  Tertullian,  replying 
to  slanders  commonly  reported  among  the  heathen  that  the  Chris¬ 
tians  mingled  the  blood  of  infants  with  their  sacramental  bread 
and  committed  incest  at  their  solemnities,  and  that  they  believed 
that  for  so  doing  they  would  be  rewarded  with  eternal  bliss,  said 
with  noble  scorn,  that  the  eternal  blessedness  of  heaven  is  not 
worth  having  at  the  price  of  committing  these  crimes.1  In  this 
sense  of  nobleness  and  worth  is  the  consciousness  of  spiritual  be¬ 
ing  above  nature  and  of  relationship  with  the  divine. 

Humor  seems  to  carry  in  it  some  consciousness  of  man’s  spirit¬ 
ual  superiority  alike  to  the  joys  and  sorrows  of  his  merely  natural 
and  earthly  life.  In  the  light  of  reason  and  the  consciousness  of 
spiritual  capacities  and  powers  he  can  lift  himself  above  himself ; 
he  condemns  himself  for  wrong-doing,  he  despises  himself  for 
meanness,  he  laughs  at  himself  for  folly.  Humor  is  that  which, 
always  with  tender  sympathy  for  man,  sees  something  to  smile 
at  in  human  life  ;  it  sees  the  comedy  mingling  with  tragedy  in 
all  conditions.  When  we  contrast  man’s  spiritual  being,  his  di¬ 
vine  relations,  his  immortal  destiny  with  the  emptiness  of  the 
joys  of  sense  and  the  transitoriness  of  his  earthly  life,  we  see  that 
his  eagerness  in  pursuing  these  transitory  things,  his  anxiety  lest 
he  fail  to  attain  them,  his  triumph  when  dazzled  with  the  shim¬ 
mer  and  glamour  of  success,  his  anguish  at  disappointment  and 
loss  are  out  of  all  proportion  to  the  importance  of  the  objects. 
And  in  wrong-doing  there  is  also  folly  along  with  the  wicked¬ 
ness.  It  is  in  some  consciousness  of  man’s  spiritual  superiority 
to  the  life  of  sense  that  man  sees  the  humorous  side  of  life.  As 
a  mother,  from  the  height  of  her  superior  knowledge  and  with  all 
a  mother’s  tenderness,  looks  down  on  her  little  child  and  sees 
something  to  smile  at,  not  only  in  its  childish  pleasures  but  also 
in  its  perplexities  and  its  sorrows  and  even  in  its  faulty  deeds,  so 
the  spirit  of  man  in  its  humor,  conscious  of  spiritual  powers,  re¬ 
lations  and  destiny,  looks  down  from  that  height  on  the  eager  life 
of  man  with  smiles  which  are  not  far  from  tears. 

It  must  be  added  that  in  all  the  emotions  pertaining  to  the 
true,  the  right,  the  perfect  and  the  good,  there  is  a  revelation 
within  the  human  consciousness,  not  only  of  rational  spirit,  but 
also  of  spirit  that  is  absolute  as  well  as  rational.  This  appears 
in  the  strength  and  boundlessness  of  the  aspirations  and  the  in¬ 
tensity  of  the  emotions.  In  science  man  is  impelled  to  explore 

1  Apologeticus,  §  8. 


390 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


the  universe  to  its  outmost  bounds  and  its  inmost  constitution, 
outward  through  all  space  and  backward  and  forward  through  all 
time,  and  with  an  intensity  which  fears  not  arctic  cold  nor  torrid 
heat  nor  pestilential  climates  ;  which  risks  and  sometimes  sacri¬ 
fices  life  in  pursuit  of  knowledge.  In  the  moral  emotions  are 
fears  and  aspirations  reaching  into  eternit}7,  intensity  of  shame 
and  remorse  driving  to  despair,  and  blessedness  in  doing  right 
which  fills  the  soul  as  the  sunshine  fills  the  concave  of  the  firma¬ 
ment  with  solid  light.  And  as  to  the  perfect  and  the  good,  man 
aspires  to  nothing  less  than  to  be  like  God  and  to  be  blessed 
eternally  with  him.  Pfleiderer  says  :  44  Mosaism  has  an  absolute 
principle  of  morals  :  4  Be  ye  holy  for  I  am  holy.’  The  basis  of 
the  Old  Testament  morality  is  the  belief  in  a  holy  God.  In  the 
holiness  of  God  lies  his  exaltation  above  the  finite  and  the  nat¬ 
ural,  above  all  beginning,  changing  and  passing  away ;  in  it  lies 
the  absolute.”  1  And  Kant  holds  that  in  the  practical  reason 
man  has  immediate  consciousness  of  God  revealing  himself  in  the 
moral  law  within  him.  In  the  moral  feelings  the  imperative  of 
the  absolute  Reason  is  revealed  and  felt  within  the  consciousness 
of  man.  The  same  is  equally  true  of  each  of  the  other  funda¬ 
mental  ideas  of  reason.  In  the  scientific  motives  and  emotions 
connected  with  the  rational  intuition  of  the  necessary  and  uni¬ 
versal  principles  regulative  of  all  thinking,  man  finds  revealed  in 
his  own  consciousness  the  absoluteness  and  unchangeableness  and 
universality  of  the  eternal  Reason.  In  the  ideals  of  the  perfect 
the  soul  thrills  with  aesthetic  joy  in  the  presence  of  beauty,  is 
awed  before  the  sublime,  aspires  to  a  perfection  above  all  that  is 
seen  on  earth,  and  thus  is  conscious  of  a  perfection  and  a  glory 
that  is  divine.  And  in  our  sense  of  honor  and  worth  we  meas¬ 
ure  what  is  good  by  standards  above  the  mere  quantity  of  en¬ 
joyment,  above  all  empirical  measurements  ;  we  find  within  us 
standards  of  unchanging  reason  in  which  we  are  conscious  of  the 
presence  of  the  Reason  which  is  absolute  and  divine. 

The  absolute  Spirit  reveals  himself  in  the  feelings,  not  only  as 
absolute  Reason,  the  eternal  seat  of  all  truth,  law,  perfection  and 
good,  but  also  as  Reason  energizing,  as  the  almighty  Will  that 
creates  and  sustains  the  universe  and  reveals  in  it  his  power. 
Responsive  to  this  is  man’s  feeling  of  dependence,  his  conscious¬ 
ness  of  weakness,  limitation,  insufficiency,  of  need  of  one  wiser 
and  mightier  than  himself,  a  Father  in  Heaven.  Heinrich  Heine 
said:  44 1  am  no  child;  I  do  not  want  a  heavenly  Father  any 

1  Moral  und  Religion,  §  19,  p.  32. 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  MAN. 


391 


more.”  Yet  in  the  last  days  of  his  out-door  life,  in  the  sad  sense 
of  dependence  and  need,  he  falls  at  the  feet  of  the  Venus  of  Milo, 
his  loved  ideal  of  beauty,  sees  her  looking  on  him  with  divine 
pity,  and  seems  to  hear  her  response :  “  Dost  thou  not  see  that  I 
have  no  arms  and  therefore  cannot  help  thee?”1  Comical  in¬ 
deed,  and  yet  the  deepest  tragedy ;  a  soul  awakening  from  its 
self-sufficiency  to  the  sense  of  dependence  and  need,  and,  with  the 
revelation  of  the  God  of  love  lying  like  the  sunlight  all  about 
him,  crying  for  help  to  an  illusion,  “  a  false  creation  proceeding 
from  the  heat-oppressed  brain.” 

Schleiermacher  gives  the  sense  of  dependence  as  the  one  root 
of  religion  ;  as  in  fact  being  religion.  But  this  is  impossible. 
One  may  have  the  most  urgent  sense  of  complete  dependence 
without  any  religious  feeling  towards  the  object  on  which  he 
depends  ;  as  a  shipwrecked  sailor  clinging  to  a  floating  spar. 
Religion  implies  not  merely  the  sense  of  dependence,  but  of 
dependence  on  some  power  beyond  nature  and  man.  And  so 
far  as  even  this  is  the  sense  of  dependence  on  power  only,  it 
is  but  one  among  many  religious  feelings.  Religion  is  the  re¬ 
sponse  of  the  soul  to  the  presence  of  the  absolute  Spirit ;  to  the 
spiritual  and  the  personal  in  the  absolute,  and  not  merely  to  the 
power.  It  is  consciousness  of  needing  the  guidance  of  wisdom 
and  the  upholding  of  love,  and  not  merely  the  support  of  power. 
The  latter,  when  alone,  is  the  consciousness  only  of  being  help¬ 
less  in  the  grasp  of  unintelligent  and  resistless  fate  ;  it  therefore 
lacks  elements  essential  in  the  religious  consciousness  and  is  not 
properly  called  religion. 

Another  feeling  in  which  religion  has  root  is  the  peculiar  im¬ 
pression  under  which  the  soul  thrills  at  the  contact  or  the  im¬ 
agination  of  contact  with  spirits  from  the  world  unseen.  The 
imagined  appearance  of  a  visitant  from  the  spiritual  world  fills 
the  mind  with  awe.  “In  thoughts  from  the  visions  of  the  night, 
when  deep  sleep  falleth  on  men,  fear  came  upon  me  and  trem¬ 
bling,  which  made  all  my  bones  to  shake.  Then  a  spirit  passed 
before  my  face  ;  the  hair  of  my  flesh  stood  up.”2  It  is  not  the 
dread  of  danger.  The  same  man  might  march  to  the  cannon's 
mouth  without  trembling.  It  is  a  peculiar  awe  under  which  the 
man  quivers  at  the  approach  of  the  spiritual  world.  Warriors, 
who  never  feared  in  battle,  quake  at  their  own  fancies  when  they 
fancy  they  see  a  spirit. 

One  cannot  even  hear  of  such  apparitions  without  a  peculiar 

1  Stedman,  Victorian  Poets,  pp.  18,  19.  2  Job  iv.  13. 


392 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


terror,  such  as  no  other  cause  excites.  That  keen  observer  of 
human  nature,  Sir  Walter  Scott,  remarked  that  when  any  com¬ 
pany  are  in  an  evening  listening  to  stories  of  ghosts,  however  con¬ 
vinced  that  the  stories  are  false,  they  instinctively  draw  their 
chairs  nearer  together  and  exhibit  signs  of  awe.  The  idea  of  the 
unseen  world,  entering  the  mind  through  the  imagination,  makes 
the  soul  quiver  at  its  coming.  So  in  Tennyson’s  Harold,  when 
the  kingdom  has  been  put  under  an  interdict  by  the  Pope,  Harold 
is  represented  as  saying  :  — 

“  Fool  and  wise  I  fear 
This  curse  and  scorn  it.” 

The  very  thought  of  a  spiritual  presence,  when  vivid,  produces 
a  similar  impression.  Experiences  in  thoughts  and  visions  of  the 
night  analogous  to  those  recorded  ages  ago  in  the  book  of  Job, 
are  not  uncommon  now.  One  wakes  from  deep  sleep  ;  in  the 
darkness,  the  loneliness,  the  silence,  he  thinks  of  the  world  of 
spirits,  its  reality,  its  nearness,  his  own  inevitable  approach  to 
it ;  he  thinks  of  the  great  God  looking  on  him  out  of  the  dark  ; 
he  imagines  spirits  of  the  dead  near  him.  Who  has  not  felt  at 
such  hours  the  peculiar  and  thrilling  awe  of  the  unseen  and  spir¬ 
itual  world  ? 

This  is  why  proximity  to  the  dead  inspires  men  with  fear,  and 
a  corpse,  silent  and  still,  daunts  the  soul  that  never  feared  the 
living.  Hugh  Miller  in  his  boyhood  was  one  night  shut  up  by 
the  rising  tide  in  a  cave.  He  says :  “  The  corpse  of  a  drowned 
man  had  been  found  on  the  beach  about  a  month  previous,  some 
forty  yards  from  where  we  lay.  I  had  examined  the  body,  as 
young  people  are  apt  to  do,  a  great  deal  too  curiously  for  my 
peace  ;  and  though  I  had  never  done  the  poor  nameless  seaman 
any  harm,  I  could  not  have  suffered  more  from  him  during  that 
melancholy  night,  had  I  been  his  murderer.  Sleeping  or  waking 
he  was  constantly  before  me.  The  near  neighborhood  of  a  score 
of  living  bandits  would  have  inspired  less  horror  than  the  recol¬ 
lection  of  that  one  seaman.”  1 

There  is  often  power  in  a  single  word,  striking  the  soul's  sensi¬ 
tiveness  to  spiritual  realities,  to  rouse  to  intense  emotion.  Han¬ 
nah  More  relates  that  a  lady  just  returned  from  a  ball  saw  the 
word  Eternity  on  an  open  page  on  her  toilet-table  ;  its  signifi¬ 
cance  rushed  upon  her  mind,  awakening  her  spiritual  suscepti¬ 
bilities,  and  this  was  the  beginning  of  an  earnest  spiritual  life. 

This  power  on  the  spiritual  susceptibilities  exerted  by  the  very 
1  My  Schools  and  Schoolmasters,  p.  77. 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  MAN. 


393 


thought,  the  imagination  even,  of  spiritual  realities  is  the  reason 
why  superstition  finds  currency  among  the  ignorant  and  those 
who  are  wrongly  taught.  This  is  no  argument  against  the  re¬ 
ality  of  God  ahd  the  spiritual  world,  but  is  a  decisive  argument 
for  it.  It  is  only  the  deepest  sentiments  of  the  heart  which  can 
be  aroused  by  a  fancy.  The  bare  suspicion  that  her  absent  child 
is  in  danger,  even  a  dream  of  it,  may  rob  the  mother  of  peace. 
It  simply  shows  how  strong  and  true  the  instinct  is,  although,  on 
hurrying  home,  she  may  find  that,  in  the  particular  case,  the 
danger  fancied  or  dreamed  of  was  unreal.  So  the  ease  with  which 
superstition  is  propagated  and  the  power  which  even  through  the 
imagination  it  exerts,  are  proof  that  the  spiritual  sensibilities  are 
strong  and  true  in  revealing  God  and  the  spiritual  world,  though 
man  err  in  his  judgments  in  the  interpretation  of  them  in  detail. 

4.  The  foregoing  analysis  proves  that  the  spontaneous  belief 
in  God  has  root  in  the  constitution  of  man  ;  that  therefore  it 
gives  a  real  and  rational  knowledge  of  God  ;  and  if  not,  then 
falsehood  is  ingrained  in  the  whole  personal  constitution  of  man, 
and  knowledge  is  impossible. 

It  was  ascertained  in  the  outset  that  belief  in  a  divinity  is  a 
common  characteristic  of  humanity,  and  is  spontaneous,  power¬ 
ful  and  persistent.  From  this  it  was  inferred  that  it  is  rooted  in 
the  constitution  of  man. 

We  have  now  analvzed  the  human  constitution  and  have  found 
that  this  spontaneous  belief  has  root  in  the  personality  of  man 
and  in  all  its  capacities  and  powers.  It  has  root  in  the  reason 
and  is  involved  in  all  its  fundamental  ideas  ;  it  has  root  in  the 
free  will ;  and  roots  ramified  through  the  sensibilities.  The  be¬ 
lief  springs  not  from  a  single  tap-root,  but  from  roots  complicated 
and  ramifying  through  man’s  entire  personality.  In  unfolding 
man’s  consciousness  of  personality,  from  whatever  side,  this  hid¬ 
den  element  of  belief  in  God  comes  to  light,  and  reveals  that  its 
presence  is  indispensable  to  the  completed  consciousness.  So 
Julius  Muller  says  :  “  In  the  depths  of  our  own  self-conscious¬ 
ness,  as  its  concealed  background,  the  God-consciousness  reveals 
itself  in  us  ;  the  descent  into  our  own  inmost  spirit  is  at  the  same 
time  an  ascent  to  God.  Every  deep  reflection  on  ourselves 
breaks  through  the  crust  of  the  mere  world-consciousness,  which 
separates  us  from  the  inmost  truth  of  our  being,  and  brings  us 
face  to  face  with  him  in  whom  we  live  and  move  and  have  our 
being.”  1  Tertullian  seems  to  have  had  the  same  thought  in  his 
1  Christian  Doctrine  of  Sin,  bk.  L  part  i.  chap.  ii. 


894 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


mind  when  he  said  :  44  This  is  the  crowning  guilt  of  men,  that 
they  will  not  recognize  One  of  whom  they  cannot  possibly  be 
ignorant.  Would  you  have  the  proof  from  the  works  of  his  hand, 
so  numerous  and  so  great  ?  ...  Or  would  you  rather  have  it  from 
the  testimony  of  the  soul  itself  ?  Though  under  the  oppressive 
bondage  of  the  body,  led  astray  by  bad  teaching,  weakened  by 
lusts  and  passions,  in  slavery  to  false  gods  ;  yet  whenever  the 
soul  comes  to  itself  as  out  of  a  surfeit  or  a  sleep  or  a  sickness 
and  attains  something  of  its  natural  soundness,  it  speaks  of  God  ; 
using  no  other  word  because  this  is  the  peculiar  name  of  the  true 
God.  4  Great  God !  ’  4  Good  God  !  ’  4  May  God  grant  it ;  ’  are 
the  words  on  every  lip.  The  soul  also  calls  on  God  as  Judge  : 
4  God  sees,’  4  To  God  I  commend  it,’  4  God  will  repay.’  O  noble 
witness  of  the  soul,  Christian  by  nature.”1  That  belief  in  God 
and  a  divine  law  wells  up  spontaneously  from  the  depths  of  the 
human  spirit  seems  to  be  taught  in  Deuteronomy  ;  44  For  this 
commandment  which  I  command  thee  this  day,  it  is  not  hidden 
from  thee,  neither  is  it  far  off.  It  is  not  in  heaven,  that  thou 
shouldest  say,  Who  shall  go  for  us  to  heaven  and  bring  it  to  us, 
that  we  may  hear  it  and  do  it?  Neither  is  it  beyond  the  sea, 
that  thou  shouldest  say,  Who  shall  go  over  the  sea  for  us  and 
bring  it  to  us,  that  we  may  hear  it  and  do  it  ?  But  the  word  is 
very  nigh  unto  thee,  in  thy  mouth  and  in  thy  heart,  that  thou 
mayest  do  it.”2 

To  our  senses  the  earth  does  not  seem  to  be  one  of  the  heav¬ 
enly  bodies  belonging  to  the  solar  system  ;  yet  when  we  know  it 
as  it  really  is,  we  know  it  as  one  of  them,  moving  among  them, 
and  like  them  drawn  by  the  sun’s  attraction  and  shining  with  its 
light.  So  in  the  life  of  sense  man  does  not  see  himself  as  belong¬ 
ing  to  the  spiritual  world  ;  yet  when  he  knows  himself  as  he 
really  is,  he  knows  himself  in  the  *  spiritual  system,  one  among 
the  many  there,  luminous  with  the  light  of  the  universal  Reason, 
moving  amid  the  grandeurs  and  glories  of  eternity,  and  touched 
at  every  point  of  his  personality  by  the  drawing  of  God. 

We  see  therefore  the  mistake  of  those  divines  who  with 
Schleiermacher  maintain  that  this  spontaneous  belief  in  a  God 
has  its  origin  in  the  single  feeling  of  dependence.  For  some  im¬ 
plicit  consciousness  of  God  is  involved  not  only  in  this  feeling 
but  also  in  all  the  rational  motives  and  emotions  ;  and  also  in 
the  practical  side  of  man’s  personality,  as  free  will  acting  under 
moral  responsibility.  They  also  err  who  find  the  consciousness 
1  Apologeticus,  §  17.  2  Chap.  xxx.  11-14. 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  MAN. 


895 


of  God  in  the  emotional  and  practical  sides  of  personality,  but 
exclude  it  from  the  intellectual.  For  reason  scrutinizes  man’s 
belief  in  God  and  affirms  it  to  be  a  rational  and  reasonable  belief, 
in  fact  the  attestation  of  reason  itself  to  the  existence  of  God. 
Reason  finds  that  in  all  its  acts  its  own  trustworthiness  depends 
on  the  reality  of  the  absolute  Reason,  and  its  assent  to  this  re¬ 
ality  is  implied.  And  the  mistake  of  resting  this  belief  on  feeling 
and  the  practical  side  of  man’s  personality  to  the  exclusion  of 
reason  is  fatal.  If  religious  faith  has  no  root  in  intelligence,  if  it 
is  not  an  outcome  of  reason,  grounded  in  its  principles  and  con¬ 
firmed  by  its  scrutiny,  it  is  powerless  in  the  face  of  skepticism 
and  of  too  little  value  to  be  worth  contending  for.  “  The  en¬ 
tire  surrender  of  the  soul  which  is  the  very  essence  of  religion, 
can  only  be  distinguished  from  superstition  when  regarded  as  in 
the  highest  sense  a  rational  act.  On  any  other  supposition  re¬ 
ligion  must  be  viewed  as  a  form  of  mental  disease.”  1  A  promi¬ 
nent  preacher  says  in  a  published  sermon  :  “  The  ordinary  func¬ 
tions  of  thought  require  to  be  replaced  by  a  revelation  that  is 
from  above.  .  .  .  When  once  it  has  been  allowed  by  the  advo¬ 
cates  of  the  gospel  that  reason  is  an  incompetent  authority  in 
matters  of  the  soul  and  immortality,  the  less  they  have  to  do 
with  reason,  either  as  witness  or  judge,  the  more  will  it  comport 
with  the  dignity  of  the  proceeding  and  the  validity  of  the  judg¬ 
ing.  Having  discarded  reason  as  umpire  in  the  premises  (and 
along  with  reason  of  course  the  other  lower  intellectual  agencies) 
what  have  we  left  on  which  to  rely  for  persuasion  in  the  matter  ? 
...  I  know  of  no  way  that  is  completely  satisfactory  except 
through  a  conviction  that  is  supernaturally  bestowed.”  Here 
then  we  have  “validity  of  judging  ”  and  “  conviction  ”  without 
reason  or  intellectual  agencies.  It  seems  not  to  have  occurred  to 
the  writer  that  it  requires  reason  to  receive  and  interpret  a  rev¬ 
elation  of  God  not  less  than  to  give  it.  Christian  divines  who 
thus  flee  from  the  assaults  of  skepticism  to  a  faith  founded  on 
feeling  only  and  divorced  from  reason  and  intelligence,  concede 
all  which  the  skeptic  asks.  They  acknowledge  that  theistic  be¬ 
lief  is  neither  rational  nor  reasonable,  and  cannot  stand  in  the 
light  of  reason. 

On  the  other  hand,  this  belief  is  not  the  speculative  creation 
of  reason  alone  apart  from  the  emotional  and  practical  side  of 
man’s  personality.  Reason  finds  in  the  feelings  evidence  of  the 
existence  of  God.  They  are  evidence  of  the  existence  of  God  on 
1  Professor  Diman,  The  Theistic  Argument,  pp.  73,  74. 


896 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


the  principle  on  which  evolution  rests,  that  a  being  must  be  in 
harmony  with  its  environment  or  perish.  The  instincts  of  ani¬ 
mals  point  to  a  corresponding  reality  in  their  environment.  But 
here  we  find  a  common  characteristic  of  humanity  to  be  reli¬ 
giousness,  with  its  spontaneous  belief,  its  impulses  and  aspira¬ 
tions,  its  varied  emotions  pointing  to  a  divinity.  Why  must  not 
it  also  reveal  a  corresponding  reality  in  man’s  spiritual  environ¬ 
ment?  A  rabbit’s  fearfulness  indicates  the  reality  of  its  de¬ 
fenselessness  and  danger.  So  “  the  fear  of  the  wicked  it  shall 
come  upon  him.”  The  thirst  of  the  deer  corresponds  to  the  ex¬ 
istence  of  water  to  quench  it.  And  “  as  the  hart  panteth  after 
the  water-brooks,  so  panteth  my  soul  after  thee,  my  God.  My 
soul  thirsteth  for  God,  for  the  living  God.”  A  nestling  feels 
the  impulse  to  fly.  Could  it  reason  it  might  remember  that  it 
had  alwaj^s  had  the  solid  support  of  the  nest  and  conclude  that 
if  it  threw  itself  out  it  would  fall.  But  when  it  spreads  its 
wings  it  finds  the  atmosphere  in  which  it  can  fly.  So  following 
its  spiritual  impulse,  the  soul  throws  itself  upon  the  unseen  in 
prayer  and  finds  itself  borne  upward  in  communion  with  God. 
Thus  reason  finds  evidence  of  the  existence  and  presence  of  God 
in  the  spiritual  instincts ;  in  those  motives  and  emotions  which 
lift  it  above  itself  and  have  no  significance  except  as  revealing 
the  presence  of  a  spiritual  environment;  in  the  spiritual  expe¬ 
rience  and  consciousness  expressed  by  the  Psalmist :  “  Thou 

compassest  my  path  and  my  lying  down  and  art  acquainted  with 
all  my  ways.  Thou  hast  beset  me  behind  and  before  and  laid 
thine  hand  upon  me.” 

Religious  feeling  also  confirms  the  insight  of  reason  and  the 
speculative  conclusion  of  thought.  As  the  spontaneous  belief  in 
God  springing  up  with  and  in  the  religious  feelings  is  found  also 
to  be  implied  in  the  principles  of  reason  and  is  vindicated  and 
verified  by  the  scrutiny  of  thought,  so  the  insight  of  reason  and 
the  conclusions  of  thought  are  filled  with  significance  and  con¬ 
firmed  by  the  religious  feelings.  The  belief  in  God  which 
springs  up  spontaneously  in  the  feelings,  the  belief  which  is  im¬ 
plicit  in  the  principles  of  reason  regulating  all  thought,  and  the 
belief  infolded  in  the  ratiocinated  conclusions  of  thought  are  one 
same  belief  issuing  from  all  these  several  processes  which  sustain 
and  confirm  each  other.  We  see  all  the  powers  and  susceptibili¬ 
ties  of  the  human  personality  consenting  and  concurring  in  the 
belief  that  God  exists  and  in  this  consilience  of  evidence  estab¬ 
lishing  it  firmly.  In  whatever  operations  and  states  the  person- 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  MAN.  397 

ality  of  man  reveals  itself  in  the  consciousness,  it  reveals  itself  as 
related  to  and  dependent  on  the  personal  God. 

In  the  feelings  and  the  practical  side  of  human  personality 
contents  are  given  to  the  idea  of  God  in  the*  speculative  reason. 
Kant  has  shown  that  the  idea  of  God  is  a  necessary  idea  of  pure 
reason.  Without  it  the  mind  cannot  comprehend  all  things  in  the 
unity  of  a  universe,  nor  solve  its  own  necessary  problems,  nor  bring 
its  thinking  to  a  conclusion  in  knowledge.  Without  it  thinking 
is  but  weaving  a  Penelope’s  web ;  with  however  fine  a  texture 
woven  it  immediately  unravels.  It  is  indeed  legitimate  to  hold 
for  true  whatever  reason  sees  to  be  a  necessary  truth.  Kahnis 
truly  says :  “  Reason  renounces  itself  if  it  does  not  hold  for  real 
what  it  demands  with  inward  necessity.”  But  Kant  objects 
that  though  the  idea  of  God  is  necessary  to  the  speculative  rea¬ 
son,  we  cannot  know  that  it  has  objective  reality  unless  it  has 
contents  in  consciousness.  These  contents  he  finds  only  in  the 
consciousness  of  moral  law.  But  it  is  now  evident  that  con¬ 
tents  in  consciousness  for  the  idea  of  God  are  found  in  all  the 
rational  emotions  and  motives,  in  all  the  spiritual  instincts  and 
impulses,  and  in  all  the  activities  of  our  personal  susceptibilities 
and  powers.  Thus  alike  in  reflective  thought,  in  the  rational 
intuitions  and  the  religious  experience  we  know  God.  And  this 
accords  with  the  ancient  maxim :  “  Philosophy  seeks  for  the 

truth,  theology  finds  it,  religion  takes  it  into  possession.”1 

It  follows  that  the  belief  in  God  does  not  rest  on  a  special 
faculty  weak  in  isolation  from  the  intuitive  and  reflective  powers 
through  which  other  objects  are  known.  The  belief  in  God 
rests  on  and  is  interwoven  with  the  entire  personality  of  man. 
The  knowledge  of  God,  like  all  knowledge,  begins  in  experience 
and  is  elaborated  in  thought.  If  this  wrere  not  so  no  arguments 
could  prove  his  existence.  Thus  the  belief  in  God,  rooted  in  the 
whole  personality  of  man,  is  real  knowledge.  And  if  it  is  not, 
the  rational  and  personal  constitution  of  man  is  deceitful  and  un¬ 
trustworthy  and  all  knowledge  is  impossible.2 

5.  Religion  with  the  spontaneous  belief  in  a  God  involved  in 
it  exists  antecedent  to  and  independent  of  scientific  thought, 
empirical,  philosophical  and  theological.  This  is  a  necessary 
inference  from  the  constitutional  religiousness  of  man  which  has 
now  been  established. 

1  “  Philosopliia  quaerit,  theologia  invenit,  religio  possidet  veritatem.” 

2  “  Wer  Gott  nicht  fiihlt  in  sich  und  alien  Lebenkreisen, 

Dem  werdet  ibr  nicht  Ihn  beweisen  mit  Beweisen.”  — Riickert. 


398 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


The  outward  world  reveals  itself  through  impressions  on  the 
sensorium  and  through  them  we  perceive  it  and  believe  that  it 
exists.  This  belief  is  not  originated  by  scientific  thought,  is  not 
dependent  on  it  and  cannot  be  disproved  by  it.  On  the  con¬ 
trary  all  physical  science  assumes  the  unproved  belief  to  be  real 
knowledge  and  depends  on  it  for  its  own  reality  as  knowledge. 
As  Lotze  says  :  “  Something  like  what  we  here  experience  under 
the  influence  of  physical  excitements  we  may  experience  under 
the  immediate  working  of  the  divine  power  within  the  soul. 
Religious  belief  would  thus  be  an  intuition  of  the  supersensuous 
power  revealed  to  us  by  this  inworking.”1  And  as  we  have 
seen,  there  is  a  wealth  of  spiritual  experience  in  the  human  soul 
in  which  the  belief  in  a  God  spontaneously  arises.  And,  like 
the  belief  in  the  external  world,  this  belief  in  God  does  not  orig¬ 
inate  in  scientific  thought  nor  depend  on  it,  nor  can  it  be  dis¬ 
proved  by  it.  All  philosophical  and  theological  thought  assumes 
that  the  belief  in  God  is  real  knowledge  and  depends  on  it  as 
such,  just  as  physical  science  assumes  that  the  belief  in  the  out¬ 
ward  world  is  real  knowledge  and  depends  on  it  as  such. 

As  the  soul  of  a  musician  has  susceptibility  which  thrills  re¬ 
sponsive  to  the  sounds  of  a  musical  instrument  and  perceives  and 
feels  the  music,  so  man  has  spiritual  susceptibilities  which  thrill 
responsive  to  the  touch  of  spiritual  realities.  A  child  puts  its  ear 
to  a  sea-shell  and  thinks  it  hears  the  roaring  of  the  sea  whence 
the  shell  was  taken  ;  but  in  the  soul  of  the  child  whispers  the  vast 
and  far  eternity,  to  which  the  child  belongs. 

You  see  a  sun-picture  forming  on  a  prepared  plate,  and  you 
know  that  it  is  a  picture  of  some  real  object  touched  by  the  light 
of  the  sun.  The  religious  consciousness  is  a  picture  of  the  reality 
of  the  spiritual  and  the  unseen  forming  within  the  soul  by  the 
light  which  shines  from  beyond  the  range  of  sense  and  lighteth 
every  man,  revealing  God. 

Jacobi,  recognizing  in  man  a  power  of  knowing  God  and  spirit¬ 
ual  realities,  analogous  to  his  power  of  perceiving  outward  things 
through  sense,  insists  that  it  is  the  reason  in  its  highest  signifi¬ 
cance.  It  “  is  the  spiritual  eye  for  spiritual  objects,  and  we  call 
it  reason.  Some  who  are  called  philosophers  have  sought  to  dis¬ 
pense  with  this  organ,  thinking  they  could  see  their  one  truth 
clearer  with  one  eye.  So  they  put  out  the  eye  for  the  super¬ 
sensible,  insisting  that  it  is  only  a  delusive  eye,  a  seeing  double. 
It  should  be  noticed  how  the  one  eye,  after  this  operation,  gets 
1  Mikrokosmus,  vol.  iii.  bk.  ix.  chap.  iv.  §  1. 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  MAN. 


399 


into  the  middle  of  the  forehead  and  no  trace  of  the  second  eye 
remains.  These  Polyphemnses  find  credence  among  too  many. 
.  .  .  Socrates,  and  Plato  after  him,  oppose  this  one-eyed  wisdom, 
and  prove  in  many  ways  that  if  a  man  is  ever  to  attain  the  truth, 
he  needs  to  have  both  eyes  and  to  keep  them  both  wide  open.”1 
And  from  a  point  of  view  at  the  extreme  opposite  to  Jacobi 
we  find  Professor  Le  Conte  affirming  the  same  conclusion  :  “As 
there  must  be  objective  reality  in  the  things  which  constitute 
the  material  of  knowledge,  so  there  must  be  objective  realities 
corresponding  to  fundamental  and  universal  religious  beliefs.  It 
is  impossible  to  avoid  this  conclusion  except  by  an  agnosticism 
which  destroys  science  as  well  as  religion.”2  And  does  not  Paul 
also,  with  equal  decisiveness,  recognize  in  man  an  eye  which  sees 
the  invisible,  when  he  says  :  “  The  invisible  things  of  God  from 
the  creation  of  the  world  are  clearly  seen  ”  ?  And  the  same  is 
recognized  by  the  author  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  when  he 
says  of  Moses  that  “he  endured  as  seeing  him  who  is  invisible.” 

It  follows  that  the  spontaneous  belief  in  God  thus  inwrought 
into  the  personality  of  man  is  a  reasonable  ground  of  religious 
service  and  life,  even  though  the  man  has  not  as  yet  defined  and 
verified  it  in  scientific  thought.  It  is  reasonable  for  a  person  to 
act  on  the  belief  that  the  sun  exists,  though  he  has  never  proved 
it  and  has  never  studied  astronomy.  It  is  reasonable  for  him  to 
believe  in  the  reality  of  music,  though  he  knows  nothing  of  the 
undulations  of  the  air  and  the  mathematics  of  the  musical  scale 
by  which  science  explains  it.  So  it  is  reasonable  for  a  person  to 
believe  in  God  and  to  serve  him  religiously,  though  he  has  never 
attempted  scientifically  to  defend  or  formulate  his  belief.  The 
same  is  true  of  belief  in  Christ  and  Christianity  as  set  forth  in 
the  Bible.  Christ,  his  life  and  spiritual  power,  are  the  great 
demonstration  of  Christianity.  When  God  as  revealed  in  Christ 
touches  and  rouses  to  action  the  spiritual  susceptibilities  and 
capacities  of  a  man,  when  he  meets  and  satisfies  his  spiritual 
aspirations  and  needs,  when  in  his  religious  consciousness  the 
man  finds  him  quickening,  renovating,  nourishing  and  purifying 
his  soul,  then  he  believes  in  him.  And  this  belief,  springing 
from  his  very  constitution  as  a  personal  being  and  living  in  the 
inmost  life  of  his  spirit,  is  a  reasonable  and  trustworthy  belief. 

And  if  this  is  not  so,  then  the  great  majority  of  human  beings 
can  never  attain  a  reasonable  belief  in  God  and  a  trustworthy 

1  Jacobi,  Werke,  vol.  ii.  pp.  74,  75;  David  Hume  uber  deu  Glauben. 

*  Princeton  Rev.,  April,  1881,  p.  172. 


400 


THE  SELF-RE YELATION  OF  GOD. 


ground  of  religion.  It  is  true  the  heavens  declare  the  glory  of 
God,  all  nature  is  crowded  with  the  evidence  of  his  existence, 
physical  science  is  daily  revealing  new  wonders  of  his  wisdom, 
and  the  constitution  and  history  of  man  proclaim  his  moral  law 
and  reveal  his  perfect  love.  But  in  this  day  skepticism  is  equally 
all-pervading,  putting  its  interrogation-point  after  every  declara¬ 
tion  of  God's  glory.  It  calls  to  us  with  its  questions  and  doubts 
from  the  misty  heights  of  pantheistic  speculation  and  from  the 
shining  path  of  physical  science  through  all  space  and  time.  In 
studying  the  evidences  of  Christianity  we  have  to  trace  out  the 
labyrinths  of  history,  to  dig  up  ancient  and  buried  cities,  to  deci¬ 
pher  hieroglyphics  and  cuneiform  inscriptions,  and  to  master  a 
Babel  of  strange  languages.  The  mass  of  men  cannot  do  this. 
What  then?  Are  they  shut  out  from  the  possibility  of  knowing 
God  ?  or  must  they  receive  their  belief  on  the  authority  of  learned 
men?  Neither  the  one  nor  the  other.  They  are  to  find  him 
touching  their  own  hearts  and  revealing  himself  in  their  own 
lives.  They  ma}7  say  with  a  true  meaning  :  — 

“  Away,  haunt  thou  not  me, 

Thou  vain  philosophy. 

Little  hast  thou  bestead 
Save  to  perplex  the  head 
And  leave  the  spirit  dead. 

Unto  thy  broken  cisterns  wherefore  go, 

While  from  the  secret  treasure,  depths  below, 

Fed  by  the  skyey  shower 

And  clouds  that  sink  and  rest  on  hill-tops  high, 

Wisdom  at  once  and  power 

Are  welling,  bubbling  forth,  unseen,  incessantly.  .  .  . 

I 

“  Why  labor  at  the  dull  mechanic  oar, 

When  the  fresh  breeze  is  blowing 
And  the  strong  current  flowing 
Right  onward  to  the  eternal  shore  ?  ” 

It  is  evident,  therefore,  that  the  faith  of  an  unlettered  Christian 
is  a  reasonable  faith.  In  a  time  of  persecution  a  young  woman 
was  assailed  by  her  persecutors  with  arguments  to  unsettle  her 
faith.  She  heard  them  patiently  and  replied,  I  am  unlearned  and 
cannot  argue  for  Christ,  but  I  can  die  for  him. 

And  in  the  perplexities  and  difficulties  of  thought  and  the 
objections  and  doubts  incident  to  its  investigations,  it  is  reason¬ 
able  to  keep  fast  hold  on  this  spontaneous  belief,  which  comes 
from  the  depths  of  our  personal  and  spiritual  being.  This  hope 
M  we  have,  as  an  anchor  of  the  soul,  both  sure  and  steadfast  and 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  MAN. 


401 


entering  into  that  within  the  veil.”  Also  in  the  gathering  shad¬ 
ows  of  death  it  is  reasonable  that  men  hold  fast  upon  this  living 
faith,  above  all  theological  formulas.  Jean  Paul  Richter  says : 
“  When  in  your  last  hour  all  faculty  in  the  broken  spirit  shall 
fade  away  and  die  into  inanity  —  imagination,  thought,  effort, 
enjoyment  —  then  will  the  night-flower  of  belief  alone  continue 
blooming  and  refresh  with  its  perfume  in  the  closing  darkness.” 
This  living  faith  is  the  fountain  of  living  water  springing  up 
within  the  soul  and  flowing  forth  unto  everlasting  life. 

Because  belief  in  a  divinity  springs  spontaneously  out  of  the  in¬ 
most  personality  of  man,  it  must  be  persistent  in  human  history, 
and  its  suppression  by  speculative  skepticism  can  be  only  local 
and  temporary.  For  this  belief  exists  before  physical  science, 
philosophical  investigation  or  theological  thought ;  and  though  it 
can  be  verified  by  these  and  shown  to  be  a  reasonable  belief,  yet 
it  exists  spontaneously  independent  of  them.  In  fact  it  is  the 
beliefs,  welling  up  spontaneously  in  our  very  constitution  and 
living  in  the  feelings  and  will  as  well  as  in  the  intellect,  which 
call  forth  in  their  defense  the  devotedness  of  self-sacrificing  love. 
An  opinion  held  merely  as  a  result  of  argument  or  a  balancing  of 
evidence  is  not  secure.  A  new  fact,  a  new  argument,  a  suggestion 
of  doubt  from  one  whose  opinion  has  weight,  may  shake  it  and 
cause  it  to  fall.  If  religious  belief  is  to  rule  our  lives,  if  it  is  to 
be  the  motive  that  impels  and  the  standard  by  which  we  judge 
our  actions,  if  it  is  to  demand  self-devotedness  and  self-sacrifice 
and  the  martyr-spirit  in  allegiance  to  it,  it  must  be  more  than  an 
opinion  founded  on  a  balance  of  arguments  and  evidence,  it  must 
spring  from  our  constitution  as  personal,  it  must  live  as  a  real 
communion  with  God,  a  real  experience  of  his  presence  and  his 
love.  But  when  thus  rooted  in  the  personality  and  living  in  the 
spirit’s  life,  it  persists  in  the  face  of  scientific  and  philosophical 
speculation,  and  if  temporarily  suppressed  returns  with  power. 

“  One  day  they  will  return  in  shining  forms, 

These  fair  ambassadors  of  the  Infinite; 

And  when  they  come,  the  rosy-fingered  dawn 
Will  show  the  nothingness  of  churlish  Science 
Feigning  void  heavens  above  a  lawless  world.” 

And  these  principles  must  guide  us  in  teaching  men  the  knowl¬ 
edge  of  God.  If  the  belief  in  God  is  not  already  germinal  in  the 
personality,  if  there  has  been  no  experience  of  God’s  influence  in 
the  soul,  no  spontaneous  belief  welling  up  from  it,  there  is  noth¬ 
ing  for  education  to  draw  out  nor  for  culture  to  enrich  and  cause 
to  grow.  26 


402 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


And  this  is  the  source  of  many  errors  in  teaching  men  to  know 
God.  We  attempt  to  put  the  belief  in  God  into  the  mind,  but 
we  should  rather  draw  it  out.  W e  try  to  teach  men  that  there 
is  a  God  by  argument  addressed  to  the  intellect,  but  we  should 
rather  teach  it  by  awakening  and  inspiring  the  dormant  suscepti¬ 
bilities  already  in  the  spirit.  We  teach  religion  didactically  ;  but 
we  must  first  teach,  as  our  Lord  did,  presenting  spiritual  realities 
to  the  spirit  in  the  expectation  that  it  will  spiritually  respond. 
As  Boethius  says,  if  there  were  not  already  tinder  in  the  soul  the 
spark  of  divine  truth  would  not  kindle.1  As  Mr.  James  Marti- 
neau  says,  our  Lord  was  accustomed  to  “draw  forth  into  con¬ 
sciousness  those  divine  and  primitive  truths  which  have  been  set 
from  the  beginning  in  the  firmament  of  the  soul,  but,  for  want  of 
an  interpreter,  have  been  taken  for  sparkles  instead  of  suns.”2 

IV.  God  revealed  in  the  practical  power  of  faith 
IN  HIM.  —  The  knowledge  of  God  is  necessary  to  the  progress  of 
man,  whether  as  an  individual  or  in  society,  toward  the  realiza¬ 
tion  of  the  highest  possibilities  of  his  being.  God  is  revealed  in 
the  practical  needs  of  man  which  God  alone  can  meet. 

1.  In  the  first  place,  the  knowledge  of  God  is  necessary  to 
religion.  Belief  in  God  springs  from  the  constitution  of  man. 
From  the  depths  of  his  personality  and  from  all  its  powers  and 
capacities  the  spirit  of  man  cries  out  for  God.  If  there  is  no 
God,  then  man  is  endowed  with  powers  for  the  exercise  of  which 
the  universe  presents  no  sphere,  and  susceptibilities  for  the  sat¬ 
isfaction  of  which  the  universe  presents  no  object.  Then  the 
constitution  of  man  as  personal  is  in  direct  contradiction  to  it¬ 
self  and  to  the  constitution  of  the  universe.  He  is  constituted 
spiritual  with  no  spiritual  environment.  Therefore  he  can  never 
realize  his  complete  development.  He  lives  in  but  one  side  of  his 
being ;  the  other  is  smitten  with  paralysis,  yet  always  reveals  its 
presence  by  its  painfulness. 

All  the  richness  and  strength  of  character  which  come  dis¬ 
tinctively  from  religion  would  then  be  lost.  The  tenderness  and 
depth  of  repentance  for  sin  as  against  God,  the  faith  in  God  by 
which  in  the  consciousness  of  weakness  and  dependence  man  lifts 
himself  above  himself,  becomes  strong  in  God  and  is  able  to 

1  “Haeret  profecto  semen  introsum  veri, 

Quod  excitatur  ventilante  doctrina. 

Nam  cur  rogati  sponte  recta  censetis, 

Ni  mersus  alto  viveret  fomes  corde?  ” 

Boethius,  De  Consolatione  Philos,  lib.  iii.  metrum  xi. 

*  Hours  of  Thought  on  Sacred  Things,  p.  270. 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  MAN. 


403 


stand,  in  the  panoply  of  purity  and  truth,  of  faith  and  love,  even 
to  death  against  all  unrighteousness,  would  give  place  to  the 
spirit  of  self-sufficiency  which  is  the  basis  of  all  selfishness.  The 
spirit  of  reverence  toward  God  and  humility  before  him  would 
disappear.  We  should  lose  the  ennobling  conception  of  man  as 
in  the  likeness  of  God,  subject  to  his  law  and  the  object  of  his 
loving  care;  the  inspiration  of  communing  with  God  and  work¬ 
ing  with  him  for  the  advancement  of  a  kingdom  of  God  on  earth  ; 
and  the  conceptions  of  the  worth  and  dignity  of  man,  of  the  sa¬ 
credness  of  his  rights,  of  the  brotherhood  and  equality  of  men 
before  God,  the  common  Father  of  all.  We  should  lose  the  con¬ 
ception  of  the  universe  as  the  manifestation  of  God  in  the  pro¬ 
gressive  realization  of  the  ideals  of  his  wisdom  and  love,  and  of 
man  as  in  the  spiritual  system,  in  which  God  is  progressively  ad¬ 
vancing  his  reign  of  righteousness  and  grace  and  transforming 
human  society  into  a  kingdom*  of  God,  always  with  a  promise  of 
a  future  better  than  the  past.  And  the  great  hope  and  inspira¬ 
tion  of  the  life  immortal  would  fade  away  from  human  life  and 
death. 

But  this  is  not  all.  Man  finds  himself  dependent  on  the  resist¬ 
less  forces  of  nature;  and  thus,  without  God,  subject  to  a  blind 
fate.  The  consciousness  of  helpless  subjection  either  to  blind  or 
to  arbitrary  and  capricious  power  is  debasing ;  it  is  a  conscious¬ 
ness  of  slavery.  And  it  is  a  source  of  continual  unrest  and  dis¬ 
satisfaction.  In  his  subjection  to  these  resistless  forces,  in  the 
consequent  restriction,  disappointment,  suffering  and  death  which 
they  bring  on  him,  he  begins  to  ask,  Is  life  worth  living?  he 
falls  into  pessimism  ;  he  is  driven  it  may  be  to  suicide  ;  or,  if  not, 
he  begins  to  justify  it  as  the  only  relief  from  the  ills  of  life.  He 
can  be  raised  into  freedom  from  the  galling  of  this  conscious  de¬ 
pendence  on  the  forces  of  nature  only  by  his  conscious  depend¬ 
ence  on  God,  and  the  knowledge  that  nature  with  all  its  forces 
is  dependent  on  God  and  controlled  by  him  in  perfect  wisdom  and 
love.  In  this  he  finds  peace.  So  Mrs.  Browning  puts  it :  — 

“  Oil,  the  little  birds  sang  east  and  the  little  birds  sang  west  ; 

And  I  said  in  underbreath,  All  our  life  is  mixed  with  death, 

And  who  knoweth  which  is  best? 

“  Oh,  the  little  birds  sang  east  and  the  little  birds  sang  west; 

And  I  smiled  to  think  God’s  greatness  flows  around  our  incompleteness; 

Round  our  restlessness  his  rest.” 

Physicus,  the  author  of  A  Candid  Examination  of  Theism, 
concludes  his  volume  with  this  testimony  to  the  truth  of  what  I 


404 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


have  said :  “  Whether  I  regard  the  problem  of  Theism  on  the 
lower  plane  of  strict  relative  probability,  or  on  the  higher  plane 
of  purely  formal  considerations,  it  equally  becomes  my  obvious 
duty  to  stifle  all  belief  of  the  kind  which  I  conceive  to  be  the  no¬ 
blest,  and  to  discipline  my  intellect  with  regard  to  this  matter 
into  an  attitude  of  the  purest  skepticism.  And  forasmuch  as  I 
am  far  from  being  able  to  agree  with  those  who  affirm  that  the 
twilight  doctrine  of  the  ‘  new  faith  ’  is  a  desirable  substitute  for 
the  waning  splendor  of  ‘  the  old,’  I  am  not  ashamed  to  confess 
that  with  this  virtual  negation  of  God  the  universe  to  me  has  lost 
the  soul  of  loveliness ;  and  although  from  henceforth  the  precept 
to  6  work  while  it  is  day,’  will  doubtless  but  gain  an  intensified 
force  from  the  terribly  intensified  meaning  of  the  words  that  4  the 
night  cometh  in  which  no  man  can  work,’  yet  when  at  times  I 
think,  as  at  times  I  must,  of  the  appalling  contrast  between  the 
hallowed  glory  of  that  creed  which  once  was  mine,  and  the  lonely 
mystery  of  existence  as  now  I  find  it,  —  at  such  times  I  shall  ever 
feel  it  impossible  to  avoid  the  sharpest  pang  of  which  my  nature 
is  susceptible.  For  whether  it  be  due  to  my  intelligence  not  be¬ 
ing  sufficiently  advanced  to  meet  the  requirements  of  the  age,  or 
whether  it  be  due  to  the  memory  of  those  sacred  associations 
which  to  me  at  least  were  the  sweetest  that  life  has  given,  I  can¬ 
not  but  feel  that  for  me  and  those  who  think  as  I  do,  there  is  a 
dreadful  truth  in  those  words  of  Hamilton,  —  Philosophy  having 
become  a  meditation,  not  merely  of  death,  but  of  annihilation,  the 
precept,  Know  thyself ,  has  become  transformed  into  the  terrific 
oracle  to  CEdipus  :  — 

‘  Mayest  thou  never  know  the  truth  of  what  thou  art.’  ” 

And  the  late  Professor  Clifford,  of  England,  said  :  “  It  cannot  be 
doubted  that  the  theistic  belief  is  a  comfort  to  those  who  hold  it, 
and  that  the  loss  of  it  is  a  very  painful  loss.  It  cannot  be  doubted, 
at  least  by  many  of  us  in  .  this  generation,  who  either  profess  it 
now  or  have  received  it  in  our  childhood,  and  have  parted  from 
it  since  with  such  searching  trouble  as  only  cradle-faiths  can 
cause.  We  have  seen  the  spring  sun  shine  out  of  an  empty 
heaven  to  light  up  a  soulless  earth  ;  we  have  felt  with  utter  lone¬ 
liness  that  the  Great  Companion  is  dead.”  And  M.  Renan  is  re¬ 
ported  to  have  said  :  “  We  are  living  on  the  perfume  of  an  empty 
vase.”  Such  confessions  —  and  they  are  numerous  —  are  testi¬ 
mony  from  the  best  witnesses  that  science  without  God  cannot 
help  men  over  the  contradiction  which,  if  there  is  no  God,  exists 
between  man’s  spiritual  aspirations  and  his  animal  nature,  be- 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  MAR 


405 


tween  man’s  personal  constitution  and  his  environment,  nor  de¬ 
liver  him  from  the  consequent  unrest  and  dissatisfaction.  They 
give  pungency  to  Mr.  Arnold’s  demand  :  — 

“  For  the  world  cries,  Your  faith  is  now 
But  a  dead  time’s  exploded  dream; 

My  melancholy,  sciolists  say, 

Is  a  passed  mode,  an  outworn  theme.  .  .  . 

“  Ah  if  it  be  passed,  take  away, 

At  least  the  restlessness,  the  pain ; 

Be  men  henceforth  no  more  a  prey 
To  these  outdated  stings  again. 

The  nobleness  of  grief  is  gone; 

Ah,  leave  us  not  the  fret  alone.” 

2.  The  power  of  faith  in  God  appears  in  its  practical  influence 
penetrating  every  sphere  of  human  activity  and  development. 

Mr.  Frederic  Harrison,  Professor  Royce  and  others  have  given 
grand  descriptions  of  what  religion,  if  it  is  to  exist,  must  be.  It 
must  harmonize  with  and  support  oar  largest  knowledge  and  our 
deepest  convictions.  It  must  give  the  philosophy  of  human  life 
on  which  to  believe,  to  feel,  to  hope,  to  act,  in  a  word  to  live  and 
to  die.  It  must  quicken  us  to  our  most  unselfish  and  noblest  ac¬ 
tion.  It  must  be  the  vitalizing  principle  of  the  purification  and 
progress  of  society. 

The  theist  accepts  the  description  and  the  challenge  which  it 
carries  in  it.  He  affirms  that  faith  in  God,  the  eternal  Spirit, 
the  God  of  love  in  his  highest  revelation  of  himself  in  Christ,  is 
necessary  to  the  realization  of  these  noble  ends.  He  affirms  that, 
in  the  power  of  faith  in  God  progressively  realizing  these  ends, 
God  is  always  revealing  himself  to  man.  The  change  from  be¬ 
lief  in  God  to  atheism  will  not  merely  set  aside  what  is  distinc¬ 
tively  religious,  but  will  exert  a  disastrous  influence  in  every 
sphere  of  man’s  activity  and  development.  If  all  which  is  dis¬ 
tinctively  religious  is  to  be  swept  away,  if  all  the  powers  and  sus¬ 
ceptibilities  of  the  personality  of  man  in  which  religion  has  root 
and  which  must  have  God  for  their  development  and  satisfaction 
are  abortive,  having  no  object  on  which  to  act  and  no  reason  for 
their  existence,  if  all  consciousness  of  spiritual  relations  and  des¬ 
tiny,  all  hope  of  immortality  are  delusions,  it  will  be  the  most 
fundamental  change  possible  in  our  conception  of  the  universe, 
and  of  man,  his  history  and  destiny.  If  there  is  a  God  known  to 
man,  this  must  be  the  fundamental  fact  from  which  all  which 
pertains  to  human  action  and  interest  must  take  its  coloring  and 


406 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


direction.  If  that  knowledge  is  annulled,  the  change  must  be 
radical  and  immense  in  every  sphere  of  man’s  personal  action. 
Sir  James  Fitzjames  Stephen,  in  a  recent  article,  shows  with 
much  force  that  a  religion  must  have  a  supernatural  basis,  and 
that  theology,  that  is,  a  doctrine  of  God,  is  essential  to  religion  ; 
religion  will  die,  if  the  belief  in  a  divinity  ceases.  If  human  life 
is  what  atheistic  science  describes  it,  there  is  no  object  or  ma¬ 
terial  for  religion.  He  also  takes  the  bold  position  that  there 
would  be  no  need  of  it.  “We  can  get  on  very  well  without  one, 
for  though  the  view  of  life  which  science  is  opening  to  us  gives 
us  nothing  to  worship,  it  gives  us  an  infinite  number  of  things 
to  enjoy.  ...  We  should  have  to  live  on  different  principles 
from  those  which  have  usually  been  professed  ;  but  I  think  that, 
for  people  who  took  a  just  view  of  their  position  and  were  moder¬ 
ately  fortunate,  life  would  still  be  extremely  pleasant.”  1  So  we 
may  say  that  a  dog,  though  incapable  of  religion,  has  a  multitude 
of  things  to  enjoy.  Without  doubt  man  might  enjoy  much  with¬ 
out  religion.  But  the  question  is,  Could  he  enjoy  all  which  his 
constitution  shows  him  capable  of  enjoying?  Could  he  realize 
the  highest  possibilities  of  his  being  and  attain  what  his  constitu¬ 
tion  shows  must  be  the  ideal  of  man  ?  When  Mr.  Stephen  says 
that  we  should  have  to  live  on  different  principles,  his  words  have 
a  terrific  significance  which  he  seems  not  to  be  aware  of.  If,  as 
we  have  seen,  belief  in  God  springs  spontaneously  from  the  con¬ 
stitution  of  man,  then  satisfaction  in  a  life  without  a  God  would 
imply  that  man  is  unmanned  ;  that  he  is  reduced  to  a  plane  of 
life  below  the  personal  and  human.  For  God  is  the  centre  of  all 
the  radii  of  the  spiritual  sphere. 

We  proceed  to  consider  some  exemplifications  of  the  practical 
influence  of  the  denial  of  God  in  spheres  of  the  indirect  and  re¬ 
moter  action  of  the  power  of  faith  in  him. 

It  would  tend  to  hinder  the  investigation  of  truth. 

Mr.  Stephen  thinks  that  man  might  still  enjoy  scientific 
studies.  But  it  must  be  remembered  that  the  fact  that  a  man 
denies  God  does  not  change  his  constitution  as  a  personal  being, 
and  he  can  still  use  and  enjoy  his  personal  and  spiritual  powers 
and  susceptibilities  in  spheres  of  action  which  are  not  religious. 
Therefore  one  who  denies  God  may  be  interested  in  science. 
But,  as  we  have  already  seen,  the  denial  of  God  narrows  the 
range  of  scientific  thought  and  lessens  the  grandeur  of  its  results ; 
it  annuls  powerful  motives  to  scientific  investigation  ;  by  deny- 

1  The  Unknowable  and  the  Unknown  ;  Nineteenth  Century,  June,  1884. 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  MAN. 


407 


ing  that  the  universe  is  ultimately  grounded  in  reason  it  makes 
it  impossible  to  comprehend  all  things  in  the  unity  of  a  rational 
system  or  to  find  for  it  rational  significance  and  design  ;  and  by 
denying  that  the  universe  is  pervaded  and  regulated  by  one  uni¬ 
versal  reason,  in  the  light  of  which  man’s  reason,  as  the  same  in 
kind,  participates,  it  makes  all  the  conclusions  of  science  untrust¬ 
worthy  and  all  scientific  knowledge  impossible. 

If  there  is  no  God  there  must  be  also  a  fundamental  change  in 
ethics  and  morals.  Man’s  constitution  remaining  the  same  would 
indeed  as  now  spontaneously  awaken  the  sense  of  obligation,  of 
duty  and  of  moral  law.  But  this  constitution  itself  would  have 
no  rational  justification  or  explanation.  And  the  law  would  no 
longer  be  of  absolute  authority.  As  each  person  would  be  auto¬ 
nomic,  the  law  could  never  be  known  as  universal  and  supreme, 
but  only  as  subjective  in  an  individual.  There  would  be  nothing 
above  man  by  which  he  could  erect  himself  above  himself.  Moral 
freedom  and  responsibility  would  be  no  more.  In  the  denial  of 
God,  the  universal  and  everywhere  energizing  Reason,  there  would 
be  no  basis  for  a  moral  system  and  a  moral  order  of  the  universe  ; 
and  therefore  no  basis  for  the  law  of  love  comprehending  all  vir¬ 
tues.  Duties  would  take  the  place  of  love,  and  right  character 
would  be  disintegrated  into  a  doing  of  duties  piecemeal.  More¬ 
over,  in  the  absence  of  the  absolute  Reason  and  the  absolute  law 
eternal  therein,  what  is  right  could  only  be  determined  empir¬ 
ically  from  the  idea  of  the  good  and  would  be  only  that  which 
most  promotes  happiness,  and  thus  the  very  idea  of  the  right 
would  be  lost  in  that  of  the  expedient.  Thus  we  are  brought 
back  to  the  old  pagan  conception  of  life,  that  its  highest  law  is 
to  follow  nature,  and  its  highest  ideal  is  to  gratify  impulse  ;  “  to 
warm  both  hands  at  the  fire  of  life,  but  with  prudence,  so  as  not 
to  burn  one’s  fingers  ;  ”  or,  as  Cicero  said,  so  to  go  through  life 
that  when  the  inevitable  hour  of  departure  comes  we  may  quit  it 
like  a  guest  satisfied  with  the  banquet  of  which  he  has  partaken. 
What  a  strange  idea  it  is,  says  Fourier,  to  maintain  that  God  has 
given  us  passions  in  order  that  we  may  repress  them  ;  as  though 
a  father  were  to  develop  vices  in  his  child  so  that  he  may  after¬ 
wards  have  the  glory  of  overcoming  them.  And  I  see  no  escape 
from  these  conclusions  and  no  way  of  retaining  the  moral  law  and 
duty  with  any  distinctive  significance,  except  as  we  recognize  the 
moral  law  eternal  in  God,  the  absolute  Reason,  and  man’s  mem¬ 
bership  in  a  rational  and  spiritual  system  under  the  law  of  God. 
The  sense  of  duty,  the  recognition  of  man  as  a  personal  being, 


408 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


endowed  with  inviolable  rights,  the  object  of  service  only,  never 
to  be  possessed  and  used,  these  have  their  origin  only  in  God  and 
in  the  spiritual  system  in  which  man  is  under  the  law  of  God 
and  lives  in  close  relations  to  him.  Into  that  “  realm  of  ends,” 
that  divine  and  spiritual  sphere,  the  sense  of  duty,  living  and 
growing  wherever  man  is  found,  stretches  deep  its  noble  root, 
and  from  it  draws  its  life  and  nourishment. 

All  the  reasons  for  denying  theism  are  equally  reasons  for  de¬ 
nying  morality.  To  attempt  to  develop  an  ethical  philosophy 
without  God  must  be  as  fruitless  as  an  attempt  to  develop  an  as¬ 
tronomy  of  the  solar  system  without  the  sun.  It  is  because  there 
is  a  sun  that  the  planets  exist  in  a  system  in  their  common  rela¬ 
tions  to  it ;  and  it  is  because  there  is  a  God  that  men  exist  in  a 
moral  system  in  their  common  relations  to  him. 

Accordingly  we  find  that  it  is  in  man’s  highest  moral  feeling 
that  the  belief  in  God  commends  itself  to  him ;  it  is  in  his  high¬ 
est  selfishness,  sensuality  and  vice  that  God  and  religion  are  re¬ 
pugnant  to  him.  So  Renan  argues:  “Were  religion  simply  a 
mistake  of  mankind,  like  astrology,  sorcery  and  other  chimeras 
which  have  commanded  belief,  science  would  already  have  swept 
it  away.  Were  religion  only  the  fruit  of  a  childish  calculation, 
by  which  man  hopes  to  receive  beyond  the  grave  a  return  for  his 
investment  in  virtue  here  below,  he  would  be  most  taken  up  with 
it  in  his  most  selfish  moments.  Now,  it  is  in  his  best  moments 
that  the  man  is  religious;  it  is  when  he  is  good  that  he  will  have 
virtue  correspond  to  an  eternal  order  ;  it  is  when  he  contemplates 
things  disinterestedly  that  he  finds  death  revolting  and  absurd. 
Must  we  not  suppose  that  in  these  moments  man’s  vision  is  the 
clearest?  Which  is  right,  the  selfish  and  dissipated,  or  the  good 
and  self-possessed  man  ?  .  .  .  Let  us  then  stoutly  say  that  religion 
is  the  product  of  the  normal  man,  that  man  is  most  truly  himself 
when  he  is  most  religious  and  the  most  assured  of  an  infinite  des¬ 
tiny.”  1 

Skeptical  scientists  think  that  science  can  dispense  with  God. 
But  if  it  does,  it  must  also  dispense  with  ethics.  Mr.  Harrison 
pertinently  says :  “  What  can  evolution  do  to  give  a  basis  for  the 
entire  man  ?  How  can  it  act  on  the  moral  nature  and  appeal  to 
feeling,  to  veneration,  devotion,  love  ?  The  heart  of  man  cannot 
love  protoplasm  or  feel  devotion  to  the  idea  of  the  survival  of  the 
fittest.  Our  moral  being  is  not  purified  and  transformed  by  con- 

1  L’  Avenir  Relisdeux  des  Societds  Modernes.  See  Renan’s  Studies  of  Relig- 

O  O 

ious  History  and  Criticism,  Frotliingliam’s  Trans.,  pp.  392,  393. 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  MAN. 


409 


templating  dynamic  potency  that  lies  hid  in  matter.  Was  any 
one  ever  made  purer,  braver,  tenderer  by  the  law  of  perpetual 
differentiation  ?  The  scorn  which  true  brains  and  hearts,  that 
have  the  root  of  the  matter  in  religion,  launch  against  this  as¬ 
sumption  has  been  far  from  unjust  or  excessive.  The  dream 
that  on  the  ruins  of  the  Bible,  creed  and  commandments,  in  the 
place  once  filled  by  Bossuet,  Bernard  and  Aquinas,  or  by  Para¬ 
dise  Lost,  Pilgrim’s  Progress  and  the  English  Prayer  Book,  there 
might  be  erected  a  faith  in  the  Indefinite  Persistence  of  Force 
and  the  Potential  Mutability  of  Matter,  indeed  deserves  the  ridi¬ 
cule  it  meets.  Evolution  will  never  eliminate  the  heart  out  of 
man  so  long  as  mankind  exists ;  nor  will  the  spirit  of  worship, 
devotion  and  self-sacrifice  cease  to  be  the  deepest  and  most  abid¬ 
ing  forces  of  human  society.”  1  Of  the  same  purport  is  the  con¬ 
clusion  of  Mr.  Sidgwick  in  the  closing  paragraphs  of  his  Methods 
of  Ethics :  “It  is,  one  may  say,  a  matter  of  life  and  death  to  the 
Practical  Reason  that  this  premiss  ”  (the  existence  of  God  and 
divine  sanctions  of  the  moral  law)  “  should  be  somehow  obtained. 
.  .  .  Nor  can  I  fall  back  on  the  Kantian  resource  of  thinking  my¬ 
self  under  a  moral  necessity  to  regard  all  my  duties  as  if  they 
were  commandments  of  God,  although  not  entitled  to  hold  specu¬ 
latively  that  any  such  Supreme  Being  exists  ‘  as  Real.’  .  .  .  Still 
it  seems  plain  that  in  proportion  as  man  has  lived  in  the  exercise 
of  the  Practical  Reason,  as  he  believed,  and  feels  as  an  actual 
force  the  desire  to  do  what  is  right  and  reasonable  as  such,  his 
demand  for  this  premiss  will  be  intense  and  imperious.  Thus  we 
are  not  surprised  to  find  Socrates,  the  type  for  all  ages  of  the  man 
in  whom  this  desire  is  predominant,  declaring  the  conviction  that 
4  if  the  Rulers  of  the  universe  do  not  prefer  the  just  man  to  the 
unjust,  it  is  better  to  die  than  to  live.’  .  .  .  The  whole  system  of 
our  beliefs  as  to  the  intrinsic  reasonableness  of  conduct  must  fall, 
without  a  hypothesis  unverifiable  by  experience  reconciling  the 
Individual  with  the  Universal  Reason,  without  a  belief  in  some 
form  or  other  that  the  moral  order  which  we  see  imperfectly  real¬ 
ized  in  this  actual  world  is  yet  really  perfect.  If  we  reject  this 
belief,  we  may  perhaps  still  find  in  the  non-moral  universe  an  ad¬ 
equate  object  for  the  Speculative  Reason,  capable  of  being  in 
some  sense  ultimately  understood.  But  the  Cosmos  of  Duty  is 
thus  reduced  to  Chaos ;  and  the  prolonged  effort  of  the  human 
intellect  to  frame  a  perfect  ideal  of  rational  conduct  is  seen  to 
have  been  fore-doomed  to  inevitable  failure.” 

1  Creeds,  Nineteenth  Cent.,  Nov.  1880. 


410 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


The  knowledge  of  God  is  necessary,  also,  to  the  progress  of 
man  toward  realizing  the  highest  possibilities  of  his  being.  It 
is  necessary  to  his  culture  and  growth  toward  perfection. 

If  we  look  at  man  in  society,  it  is  evident  that  it  is  essential  to 
the  existence  of  society  and  still  more  to  its  wellbeing,  that  there 
must  be  some  common  standard  of  appeal  in  thought  and  also  in 
character  and  action.  There  must  be  a  universal  reason  and  its 
common  truths  in  order  that  men  may  be  intelligible  to  one 
another  in  the  intercommunication  of  knowledge  and  thought ; 
in  order  that  they  may  be  able  to  discuss  any  subject,  to  present 
arguments  and  come  to  a  common  conclusion.  Equally  necessary 
is  some  common  standard  of  moral  judgment.  Materialism  or 
any  other  non-theistic  theory  of  the  universe,  which  offers  itself 
as  adequate  for  the  guidance  and  improvement  of  human  society, 
is  bound  to  present  some  common  and  universal  truths  to  which 
all  can  appeal  in  the  determination  of  questions  of  belief,  some 
universal  law  of  character  and  conduct ;  it  must  provide  common 
sentiments  by  which  men  may  be  moved  and  inspired  to  the  no¬ 
blest  life ;  it  must  present  these  principles,  laws  and  sentiments 
as  authoritative  upon  all  in  some  overarching  light  which  shines 
for  all,  “the  true  light  which  lighteth  every  man.”  So  Lange 
says  :  u  Certain  it  is  that  the  new  epoch  will  not  conquer  unless 
it  be  under  the  banner  of  a  great  idea,  which  sweeps  away  ego¬ 
ism  and  sets  human  perfection  in  human  fellowship  as  a  new  aim, 
in  the  place  of  restless  toil  which  looks  only  to  the  personal 
gam.  1 

This  great  idea,  this  inspiring  sentiment  is  found  in  the  law  of 
love.  But  the  law  of  love  has  not  power  to  hold  society  in  coher¬ 
ence  and  to  inspire  and  direct  its  progress  unless  it  is  the  law  of 
the  universal  Reason  of  whose  unchanging  truths  and  laws  the 
universe  is  the  expression  and  revelation,  unless  this  law  is  itself 
the  constitution  of  society  and  of  the  universe,  unless  it  can  in¬ 
spire  men  with  the  faith  that  the  universe  is  upheld  and  directed 
in  all  its  ongoing  by  an  all-pervading  energy  of  wisdom  and  love. 
All  non-theistic  systems  fail  of  verification  when  tested  by  the 
demand  that  they  provide  the  principles  and  constitutive  power 
adequate  for  the  coherence,  the  happy  existence  and  the  healthful 
progress  of  society.  Theism  is  verified  by  the  test.  It  presents 
the  principle  adequate  for  the  unity  of  thought  in  the  absolute 
and  universal  Reason  in  the  light  of  which  all  men  participate  ;  it 
presents  the  principle  adequate  to  the  unity  of  moral  sentiment 
1  History  of  Materialism,  vol.  iii.  p.  361,  Thomas’s  Trans. 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  MAN. 


411 


in  the  law  of  love ;  and  it  imparts  the  inspiration  to  noble  life  in 
the  revelation  that  God  is  love,  and  that  all  are  called  to  the  life 
of  love  in  faith  in  him. 

Here  also  is  a  practical  test  and  verification  of  the  belief  in 
God.  When  God  reveals  himself  to  man  he  reveals  man  to  him¬ 
self.  The  approach  of  God  to  the  spirit  of  man  awakens  him 
from  the  life  of  the  flesh  to  the  life  of  the  spirit,  makes  him 
aware  of  his  spiritual  powers  and  relations  and  quickens  him  to 
spiritual  life.  This  is  just  the  power  which  meets  Lange’s  demand 
in  behalf  of  “  the  new  epoch,”  and  which  under  the  banner  of  a 
great  idea  is  to  sweep  away  egoism  and  set  men  to  concentrating 
their  energies,  in  universal  fellowship,  on  realizing  the  highest 
perfection  of  man.  Lange  adds:  “It  would  indeed  mitigate  the 
impending  conflict  if  insight  into  the  nature  of  human  develop¬ 
ment  and  historical  processes  were  more  generally  to  take  posses¬ 
sion  of  the  leading  minds.”  The  great  ideas  and  motive  influ¬ 
ences,  which  this  insight  would  discover  and  which  are  necessary 
to  secure  the  bloodless  and  peaceable  progress  of  man,  are  just 
those  which  come  from  the  revelation  of  man  to  himself  by  the 
revelation  of  God  to  man;  just  those  which  are  brought  into 
action  when  the  Spirit  of  God  comes  near  to  the  spirit  of  man, 
awakens  him  to  the  consciousness  of  his  own  spiritual  powers 
and  relations,  and  quickens  him  to  spiritual  activity  to  realize  the 
highest  spiritual  ends  for  himself  and  for  mankind.  And  as  the 
revelation  of  God  in  Christ  is  the  most  complete  revelation  of 
God,  so  it,  more  than  all  else,  has  revealed  the  real  significance 
and  greatness  of  man’s  being  and  aroused  him  to  use  his  highest 
powers  for  his  highest  ends.  Before  Christ  came  and  in  heathen 
civilization,  the  individual  was  lost  in  the  race,  he  was  submerged 
in  the  state,  and  in  reference  to  it  he  had  no  rights  but  only 
owed  duties ;  the  idea  was  widely  dominant  that  a  whole  family 
should  be  put  to  death  for  the  crime  of  one  of  its  members.  But 
when  God  in  Christ  revealed  his  love,  not  merely  to  mankind  as 
an  organic  unity,  but  to  men  individually  and  even  to  sinners, 
redeeming  them  from  sin,  when  he  proclaimed  in  Christ  that  a 
person  is  justified  by  God  on  his  own  personal  faith  turning  away 
from  sin,  without  the  intervention  of  any  priesthood  or  hierarchy, 
when  he  called  every  one  by  himself  to  enter  into  his  closet  and 
alone  with  God,  “  solus  cum  solo,”  to  commune  with  him,  as  a 
child  with  his  father,  then  the  greatness  of  a  man  in  his  person¬ 
ality,  his  likeness  to  God,  his  immeasurable  worth,  and  the  sacred¬ 
ness  of  his  rights  were  revealed.  When  a  person  stands  face  to 


412 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


face  with  God,  then  and  then  only  he  knows  his  own  greatness 
and  dignity,  the  sacredness  of  his  duties  and  rights,  the  signifi¬ 
cance  and  possibilities  of  his  being.  He  who  believes  in  God  be¬ 
lieves  himself  to  be  a  spirit  and  not  mere  flesh ;  he  who  believes 
himself  a  spirit  believes  also  in  God.  Here  is  the  philosophical 
basis  of  the  scriptural  doctrine  that  man  is  justified  by  faith.  It 
is  only  as  he  comes  to  the  knowledge  of  God  that  he  discovers 
the  true  significance  of  his  own  being.  As  a  finite  creature  it  is 
only  as  he  sees  his  dependence  on  God  and  trusts  him  as  the 
source  and  support  of  all  being  and  all  life,  that  he  discovers  the 
real  and  most  fundamental  relations  of  his  being  and  conforms 
his  life  and  action  to  the  realities  which  encompass  him,  or,  as  we 
may  say,  to  his  real  environment.  It  is  only  as  he  sees  and  trusts 
God  as  the  absolute  Reason  or  Spirit  perfect  in  wisdom  and  love, 
that  his  own  spiritual  potencies  are  quickened  into  action  and  di¬ 
rected  to  realizing  the  highest  possibilities  of  his  being.  This 
fact  is  established  alike  by  Scripture,  philosophy  and  history. 

“  From  God  is  all  that  soothes  the  life  of  man, 

His  high  endeavor  and  his  glad  success, 

His  strength  to  suffer  and  his  will  to  serve.” 

To  this  practical  test  the  belief  in  God  lies  open  continuously 
through  the  whole  course  of  human  history  and  by  this  it  chal¬ 
lenges  verification. 

If  we  deny  God,  then  the  ideal  of  the  perfect  man  is  funda¬ 
mentally  changed.  Comte  says  that  Positivism  requires  man  to 
give  up  his  claim  to  be  the  lowest  of  the  angels  and  to  content 
himself  with  being  the  highest  of  the  brutes.  But  if  man  may 
no  longer  think  of  himself  as  a  personal  being  existing  in  a  sys¬ 
tem  of  personal  and  spiritual  beings  all  united  by  common  rela¬ 
tions  to  God,  the  eternal  Spirit,  if  all  interests  and  hopes,  all 
activities,  possibilities  and  plans  of  a  spiritual  system  vanish  in 
nothingness  and  man  is  shut  up  in  the  sphere  of  brute  life,  then 
certainly  there  must  be  a  radical  change  in  his  idea  of  the  range 
of  his  action  and  aspiration,  of  the  possibilities  of  his  being,  of 
his  perfection  and  the  goal  of  his  progress. 

It  will  be  objected  that,  though  man  denies  God,  he  does  not 
in  fact  sink  to  the  level  of  mere  brute  life ;  he  still  has  pleasure 
in  science  and  art ;  he  has  moral  ideas  and  acts  in  conformity 
with  duty.  This  may  be  true.  But  it  is  because  his  denial  of 
God  does  not  change  his  constitution  as  a  personal  being,  that  he 
still  feels  these  aspirations  to  higher  ends  than  the  animal  system 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  MAN. 


413 


presents,  and  directs  liis  energies  to  higher  spheres.  In  this  his 
constitution  as  personal  protests  against  his  disbelief  and  denial. 
He  uses  his  reason  as  if  it  participated  in  the  light  of  the  uni¬ 
versal  Reason,  he  obeys  moral  law  as  if  it  were  absolute  and 
universal  law,  he  seeks  perfection  as  if  he  were  still  the  lowest 
of  the  angels,  he  feels  enthusiasm  for  truth  and  right,  for  ideals 
of  the  reason  and  sentiments  of  the  soul  which  have  no  signifi¬ 
cance  in  the  life  of  sense,  as  if  he  were  in  the  image  of  God 
and  capable  of  spiritual  perfection.  He  might  give  up  his  life 
for  a  sentiment  as  if  conscious  of  worth  transcending  his  earthly 
life,  though  every  principle  left  him  in  his  disbelief  must  tell  him 
that  the  sacrifice  would  be  foolish.  And  in  every  such  “  as  if  ” 
the  action  reveals  a  spiritual  reality. 

It  is  needless  to  attempt  to  picture  what  the  ideal  and  goal 
of  life  would  be  if  there  is  no  God ;  for  we  have  a  picture  of 
it  already  drawn  by  the  competent  hand  of  Mr.  Huxley  in  his 
Physical  Basis  of  Life.  He  quotes  one  of  Goethe’s  Venetian 
Epigrams,  and  says  that  into  it  “Goethe  has  condensed  a  survey 
of  all  the  powers  of  mankind.”  It  is  this  :  “Why  so  bustle  the 
people  and  cry?  To  get  food,  to  rear  children  and  nourish  them 
as  well  as  they  can.  .  .  .  Farther  than  this  attainetli  no  man,  put 
himself  however  he  will.”  1  He  then  explains  that  all  the  multi¬ 
plied  activities  of  men  are  comprehended  in  these  three  classes, 
and  adds  :  “  Even  those  manifestations  of  intellect,  of  feeling  and 
of  will,  which  we  rightly  name  the  higher  faculties,  are  not  ex¬ 
cluded  from  this  classification,  inasmuch  as  to  every  one  but  the 
subject  of  them  they  are  known  only  as  transitory  changes  in 
the  relative  positions  of  the  human  body.”  This,  then,  is  the 
highest  possibility  of  humanity,  the  ideal  of  human  perfection, 
the  goal  of  all  human  progress.  “  Lord  Brougham,  expressing 
perhaps  extravagantly  his  expectation  of  intellectual  progress, 
said  he  hoped  the  time  would  come  when  every  man  in  Eng¬ 
land  would  read  Bacon.  Cobbett  wittily  replied  that  he  would 
be  contented  if  the  time  should  come  when  every  man  in  Eng¬ 
land  would  eat  bacon  —  an  answer  not  less  pertinent  than  witty, 
if  it  meant  merely  that  the  removal  of  pauperism  was  a  more 
immediate  need  than  the  diffusion  of  intellectual  culture,  but  an 
answer  well  fitted  to  express  the  ultimate  and  highest  promise  of 
Professor  Huxley.  The  Hebrew  prophets  foretell  a  happy  future 

l  “  Warum  treibt  sich  das  Volk  so  und  schreit?  Es  will  sich  ernahren, 

Kinder  zeugen,  und  sie  nahren  so  gut  es  vermag  .  .  . 

Weiter  bringt  es  kein  Mensch,  stell’  er  sich  wie  er  auch  will.” 


414 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


for  man  wlien  the  earth  shall  be  full  of  the  knowledge  of  God ; 
this  new  gospel  foretells  a  happy  future  when  the  earth  shall  be 
full  of  bacon.”1  Mr.  Huxley  with  good  reason  cautions  his  read¬ 
ers  :  “In  accepting  these  conclusions  you  are  placing  your  feet 
on  the  first  rung  of  a  ladder  which,  in  most  people’s  estimation, 
is  the  reverse  of  Jacob’s  and  leads  to  the  antipodes  of  heaven.” 

Here  we  come  in  sight  of  two  types  of  civilization  struggling 
for  precedence  —  contrasted  long  ago  by  Jesus:  the  one  that  man 
lives  by  bread  alone;  the  other  that  he  lives  by  the  word  of  God; 
the  one  which  sees  utility  only  in  the  multiplication  of  products, 
and  sinking  the  man  in  the  artisan,  appoints  him  to  moil  and 
fatten  “  where  wealth  accumulates  and  men  decay ;  ”  the  other 
which,  not  neglecting  physical  attainments  and  comfort,  subor¬ 
dinates  these  to  intellectual,  aesthetic,  social  and  spiritual  cul¬ 
ture  ;  the  one  which  recognizes  man  in  his  highest  attainments 
as  no  more  than  the  student  of  nature ;  the  other  which,  with 
Kepler,  recognizes  the  student  and  interpreter  of  nature  as  also 
the  student  and  interpreter  of  the  divine  mind,  “  reading  God’s 
thoughts  after  him  ;  ”  the  one  which  explains  man  and  all  his 
progress  as  the  result  only  of  physical  forces;  the  other  which 
regards  them  as  the  result  of  spiritual  energies  originating  in 
God’s  love,  expressing  the  action  of  his  grace,  establishing  on 
earth  a  kingdom  of  righteousness  and  peace,  renovating  the  earth 
by  and  for  man  and  installing  him  in  that  lordship  over  nature 
for  which  he  was  created.  It  is  the  former  of  these  types  which 
arises  from  disbelief  in  God,  a  realistic  and  materialistic  civil¬ 
ization,  creeping  over  society  like  a  glacier,  freezing  and  burying 
all  spiritual  life  and  beauty. 

In  such  a  civilization,  as  it  gradually  works  out  its  legitimate 
results,  art  will  lose  its  ideals  and  sink  to  a  realistic  copying, 
the  work  of  a  draughtsman  rather  than  of  an  artist ;  poetry  will 
lose  its  inspiration,  and  the  noble  sentiments  for  which  men  and 
women  have  died  as  heroes  will  be  sneered  at  as  sentimentality ; 
the  chief  end  of  man  will  be  to  be  an  artisan,  and  in  the  mul¬ 
titude  of  specialists  Diogenes  will  again  have  need  to  light  his 
lamp  in  the  daytime  to  find  a  man ;  the  artisan  becomes  of  less 
value  than  his  products,  and,  if  it  is  needful,  is  to  be  sacrificed 
to  multiply  them.  Under  such  influences  the  civilization  which 
Comte  has  described  as  the  result  of  the  reign  of  Positivism  may 

1  The  Christian  Doctrine  of  Human  Progress  Contrasted  with  the  Natural¬ 
istic,  by  Samuel  Harris,  in  Boston  Lectures  on  Christianity  and  Skepticism, 
1870,  pp.  56,  57,  59. 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  MAN. 


415 


be  realized,  if  ever.  The  man  is  the  tool  of  the  state,  having 
no  rights  as  related  to  the  state,  but  only  duties ;  a  hierarchy  of 
savans  determines  despotically  every  person’s  business,  regulates 
hour  by  hour  all  the  minutiae  of  labor,  food  and  rest,  and,  like 
the  Inquisition  of  old,  carries  its  dictation  and  espionage  into  the 
sphere  of  opinion  and  conscience,  and,  as  no  other  tyranny  polit¬ 
ical  or  ecclesiastical  ever  did,  into  all  the  privacy  of  life.  Love 
is  regulated  by  the  state ;  the  glow  of  passion  and  the  freedom 
of  impulse  are  suppressed ;  nobleness  of  character  and  heroism  of 
action  are  made  impossible.  Individuality  is  lost  in  the  monot¬ 
ony  of  a  universal  and  regulated  productiveness ;  everything  is 
graded  down  to  a  dead  level  of  mediocrity ;  all  stimulus  to  enter¬ 
prise  and  the  development  of  genius  and  special  endowments  is 
taken  away,  and  society  is  reduced  to  mechanism.  This  is  the 
vision  of  the  good  time  coming  according  to  the  gospel  of  the 
Positive  Philosophy.  And  all  communism  and  socialism,  resting 
on  the  passionate  denial  of  God,  propose  to  realize  a  civilization 
of  a  similar  type. 

Indications  of  this  materializing  tendency  are  not  wanting.  In 
a  notice  of  Charles  Sumner,  published  soon  after  his  death,  we 
read  :  “All  are  agreed  that  his  work  was  accomplished  and  that 
there  was  little  left  for  him  to  do.  He  belonged  to  a  past  era  in 
politics,  in  which  what  may  be  called  sentimentalism  played  an  im¬ 
portant  part.”  Since  that  time  there  has  appeared  an  increasing 
tendency  to  stigmatize  as  sentimentalists  and  doctrinaires  all  who, 
looking  beyond  mere  partisanship,  would  lift  “practical  politics” 
to  a  higher  plane  and  purify  and  invigorate  political  action  with 
strong  moral  principle,  would  stop  the  encroachment  of  the  gam¬ 
bling  spirit  upon  the  domain  of  legitimate  business,  and  would 
forestall  the  revolutionary  violence  of  communists  and  socialists 
by  finding  the  true  way  of  applying  the  Christian  law  of  love  to 
the  relations  of  labor  and  capital,  and  of  constructing  a  Political 
Economy  not  founded 

Dr.  Dawson  mentions  an  address  recently  delivered  in  a  Scotch 
university  by  a  man  of  some  scientific  standing,  who  illustrated 
clergymen’s  ignorance  of  science  from  the  hymn, 

“  What  though  in  solemn  silence  all 
Roll  round  this  dark  terrestrial  ball ;  ” 

and  suggested  that  if  Addison  had  substituted  “  splendid  solar 
ball,”  “the  hymn  would  have  sung  just  as  well,  and  would  have 
had  the  advantage  of  being  right  instead  of  wrong,  and  would 
not  have  shocked  our  convictions  of  truth  and  tended  to  destroy 


exclusively  on  selfishness. 


416 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


the  respect  which  really  educated  men  ought  to  have  for  religious 
instruction.”  1  What  is  most  strikingly  illustrated  here  is  the 
thick  incapacity  to  appreciate  poetry  in  Gradgrinds  professing  to 
be  scientific,  but  whose  materialism  is  more  manifest  than  their 
science.  But  what  is  most  amusing  is  that  if  the  suggestion  of 
this  solemn  critic  were  adopted  and  the  change  made  which 
would  save  “  really  educated  men  ”  from  being  shocked  by 
clergymen's  ignorance  of  science,  we  should  sing,  not  as  devo¬ 
tional  poetry,  but  as  poetry  rectified  into  exact  science,  the  as¬ 
tounding  assertion  that  all  the  fixed  stars  revolve  around  the 
sun  once  in  every  twenty-four  hours.  Kahnis  says  that  some  of 
the  German  illuminati  in  the  last  century,  in  the  interests  of 
geographical  accuracy,  actually  changed  a  line  of  a  hymn  from 
“The  world  is  all  asleep”  to  “Half  the  world  is  asleep.”2  I 
close  the  discussion  of  this  point  in  the  words  of  Lange;  “We 
here  leave  entirely  out  of  view  what  advantages  the  other  sys¬ 
tems  (the  theistic  systems)  may  perhaps  possess  in  their  pro¬ 
foundness,  in  their  relations  with  art,  religion  and  poetry,  in 
brilliant  divination  and  stimulating  play  of  mind.  In  such 
treasures  materialism  is  poor.”  3 

It  remains  to  consider  the  practical  need  of  the  knowledge  of 
God  in  its  bearing  on  man’s  acquisition  of  the  Good. 

It  must  determine  what  his  Good  is.  If  he  knows  God,  then 
he  is  capable  of  blessedness  in  communing  with  him  and  being 
like  him,  and  in  working  with  God  in  universal  love  to  advance 
his  kingdom  of  righteousness  and  peace  on  earth.  But  if  there 
is  no  God,  all  the  great  possibilities  of  good  for  man  in  his  rela¬ 
tion  to  God  and  the  spiritual  system  vanish.  Then  man’s  highest 
and  only  good  must  be  found  in  his  short  earthly  life  and  in  the 
narrow  physical  sphere  of  action  and  enjoyment. 

Brutes  are  shut  up  within  these  limits  and  are  content.  There 
is  nothing  in  their  constitution  that  gives  them  any  consciousness 
of  their  limitation  as  brutes,  or  any  capacity  of  looking  over  the 
bounds  of  their  nature  into  any  higher  sphere,  or  that  awakens 
desire  for  aught  beyond.  But  man  cannot  be  groomed  and  fod¬ 
dered  into  blessedness.  His  constitution  as  personal  awakens 
higher  desires  and  inspires  him  with  larger  hopes.  Therefore 
his  desires  outreach  his  earthly  condition ;  they  grow  by  what 

1  Nature  and  the  Bible,  pp.  16,  17. 

2  Internal  History  of  German  Protestantism  since  the  Middle  of  the  Last 
Century,  p.  184,  Meyer’s  'Trans. 

3  Hist,  of  Materialism,  vol.  ii.  p.  157,  Thomas’s  Trans. 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  MAN. 


417 


they  feed  on ;  and  whatever  the  amount  of  his  worldly  goods,  he 
remains  unsatisfied  and  restless,  always  driven  by  a  consuming 
desire  for  more.  Hence  men  find  that  they  have  fed  their  hopes 
on  illusions;  they  begin  to  ask  “  Is  life  worth  living?”  They 
sink  into  pessimism  ;  they  seek  suicide.  The  growing  frequency 
of  this  crime  and  the  revival  of  attempts  to  justify  it  are  gloomy 
symptoms  of  a  decay  of  faith. 

To  help  men  to  peace  and  save  them  from  this  disappoint¬ 
ment  and  discontent  some  moralists  warn  us  against  dispelling 
the  illusions  of  life ;  let  the  rugged  realities  of  life  remain  cov¬ 
ered  with  pleasing  illusions.  But  this  is  sadder  than  the  unrest 
it  would  remedy  —  that  one  must  be  blinded  to  the  realities  of 
the  life  through  which  he  hurries ;  that  he  chase  shadows  with  a 
zest  whetted  by  their  eluding  his  grasp  ;  that  he  shake  the  hoary 
locks  of  age  with  childish  glee  at  gains  whose  transitoriness  he 
does  not  see,  and  rush  with  growing  eagerness  across  the  narrow¬ 
ing  handbreadth  of  life,  till  all  unawares  he  steps  off  the  brink 
into  nothingness  —  a  moment’s  bustle,  a  few  inquiries,  and  all  is 
ended. 

And  this  unbelief  dries  up  the  springs  of  hope  for  mankind. 
It  paralyzes  the  great  motives  to  self-sacrifice  in  working  for  the 
progress  of  man  ;  it  annuls  the  very  principles  of  the  equality 
and  brotherhood  of  men  and  the  sacredness  of  human  rights,  and 
justifies  the  sneers  at  them  as  glittering  generalities.  Ex¬ 
pressed  as  only  one  writing  from  his  own  experience  could  ex¬ 
press  it :  — 

“Which  to  the  wilderness  drove  out 
Our  life,  to  Alpine  snow, 

And  palsied  all  our  world  with  doubt, 

And  all  our  work  with  woe.” 

From  all  these  considerations  it  is  evident  that  the  knowledge 
of  God  is  not  only  practically  necessary  to  religion  and  all  its 
influences  for  the  elevation  and  blessing  of  man,  but  also  in  per¬ 
sonal  action  not  distinctively  religious  it  is  necessary  to  the  real¬ 
izing  of  man’s  highest  possibilities  in  the  spheres  of  the  True, 
the  Right,  the  Perfect  and  the  Good.  Therefore  the  practical 
necessity  of  religion  is  not  too  strongly  stated  by  Daniel  Web¬ 
ster  :  “Religion  is  a  necessary  and  indispensable  element  in  any 
great  human  character.  There  is  no  living  without  it.  Religion 
is  the  tie  that  connects  man  with  his  Creator  and  holds  him  to 
his  throne.  If  that  be  all  sundered,  all  broken,  he  floats  away,  a 

worthless  atom  in  the  universe ;  its  proper  attractions  all  gone, 

27 


418  THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 

its  destiny  thwarted  and  its  whole  future  nothing  but  darkness, 
desolation  and  death.  A  man  with  no  sense  of  religious  duty  is 
he  whom  the  Scriptures  describe  in  such  terse  but  terrific  words 
as  being  without  God  in  the  world.  Such  a  man  is  out  of  his 
proper  being,  out  of  the  circle  of  all  his  duties,  out  of  the  circle 
of  all  his  happiness,  and  away,  far  away  from  the  purposes  of  his 
creation.”1  We  cannot  be  surprised  at  the  heart-breaking  sor¬ 
row  over  this  crushing  of  man’s  highest  hopes  and  this  desolation 
of  human  life.  Professor  Helmholtz,  in  his  Popular  Lectures  on 
the  Theory  of  Vision,  expressing  the  desolation  and  sorrow  of  a 
far  reaching  skepticism  which  seemed  to  be  impending  from  his 
own  scientific  speculations,  uses  these  lines  of  Goethe :  — 

“  Woe,  woe, 

Thou  hast  destroyed 
The  beautiful  world 
With  powerful  fist; 

In  ruin ’t  is  hurled, 

By  the  blow  of  a  demigod  shattered. 

The  scattered 

Fragments  into  the  void  we  carry, 

Deploring 

The  beauty  perished  beyond  all  restoring.” 

3.  The  objection  is  made  that  we  may  have  religion  and  all 
its  practical  benefits  without  a  divinity,  but  with  some  other 
object  of  religious  worship  and  service.  John  Stuart  Mill  says: 
“  Though  conscious  of  being  in  a  very  small  minority,  we  ven¬ 
ture  to  think  that  a  religion  may  exist  without  belief  in  a  God, 
and  that  a  religion  without  a  God  may  be  even  to  Christians  an 
instructive  and  profitable  object  of  contemplation.  ...  If  a  per¬ 
son  has  an  ideal  object,  his  attachment  and  sense  of  duty  toward 
which  are  able  to  control  and  discipline  all  his  other  sentiments 
and  propensities  and  prescribe  to  him  a  rule  of  life,  that  person 
has  a  religion.  ...  If  the  object  of  this  attachment  and  of  this 
feeling  of  duty  is  the  aggregate  of  our  fellow-creatures,  this  re¬ 
ligion  of  the  infidel  cannot  in  honesty  and  conscience  be  called 
an  intrinsically  bad  one.” 

In  the  first  chapter  I  showed  that  the  object  of  religious  wor¬ 
ship  and  service  must  be  a  divinity,  and  that  Mr.  Mill’s  substi¬ 
tute,  and  various  others  suggested  of  late,  are  entirely  inadequate 
as  objects  of  religion  in  its  distinctive  meaning.  This  is  ex¬ 
emplified  in  Mr.  Mill’s  own  definition  of  religion.  Any  passion, 
desire  or  appetite  may  flame  up  and  envelop  the  whole  being, 
1  Eulogy  on  Jeremiah  Mason;  Works,  vol.  ii.  p.  490. 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  MAN. 


419 


may  control  the  other  propensities  and  prescribe  a  rule  of  life, 
and  so  would  be  a  religion.  But  Mr.  Mill  says  the  controlling 
passion  must  have  an  ideal  object.  But  even  so,  Charlotte  Cor- 
day  was  religious ;  and  at  the  present  time,  Louise  Michel,  and 
all  the  self-consecrating  and  self-sacrificing  but  passionately  athe¬ 
istic  communists,  nihilists  and  anarchists  are  religious,  for  “  the 
object  of  their  attachment  and  duty'’  is  an  “ ideal”  one.  The 
proposal  of  such  a  substitute  annuls  the  essential  and  distinctive 
meaning  of  religion. 

»  In  the  light  of  our  discussions  of  what  religion  distinctively 
is,  of  man’s  practical  need  of  it  and  the  great  ends  which  it 
subserves,  it  is  obvious  that  the  objection  as  it  recurs  in  its 
present  form  is  entirely  without  force.  No  one  of  the  proposed 
substitutes  for  a  divinity  can  develop  a  religion  in  its  distinctive 
significance,  or  meet  man’s  religious  needs,  or  subserve  the  great 
ends  of  religion  in  man’s  progress  and  wellbeing. 

The  proposers  of  these  several  substitutes  for  a  divinity  agree 
in  testifying  thereby  that  religion  is  constitutional  in  man  and 
indispensable  to  his  true  development.  They  agree  also  in  re¬ 
futing  each  other.  Mr.  Spencer  refutes  Mr.  Harrison,  and  shows 
conclusively  that  the  worship  of  humanity  is  not  a  religion  and 
cannot  satisfy  man’s  religious  needs  nor  exert  the  beneficent  in¬ 
fluence  of  religion  in  society.  Mr.  Harrison  conclusively  proves 
the  same  of  Mr.  Spencer’s  religion  of  the  Unknowable.1  Each 
of  them,  in  setting  forth  his  own  substitute  for  a  divinity,  de- 
Hares  and  conclusively  exposes  the  insufficiency  of  all  the  others. 
Thus  we  are  returning  to  a  sort  of  polytheism,  and  again  as  of 
old  the  gods  of  Greece  fight  against  the  gods  of  Troy,  the  gods 
of  the  hills  fight  against  the  gods  of  the  valleys. 

Mr.  Spencer  recognizes  the  absolute  Being  in  the  Unknowable 
as  the  object  of  religion,  and  says :  “  That  the  object-matter  can 
be  replaced  by  another  object-matter,  as  supposed  by  those  who 
think  the  4  Religion  of  Humanity  ’  will  be  the  religion  of  the 
future,  is  a  belief  countenanced  neither  by  induction  nor  by  de¬ 
duction.  However  dominant  may  become  the  moral  sentiment 
enlisted  on  behalf  of  Humanity,  it  can  never  exclude  the  senti¬ 
ment,  alone  properly  called  religious,  awakened  by  that  which 
is  behind  Humanity  and  behind  all  other  things.” 2  Here  he 
recognizes  the  absolute  Being.  But  because  it  is  unknowable 
he  resolves  religion  into  the  sense  of  the  mysterious  only.  This 

1  Nineteenth  Cent.,  Jan.,  March,  July,  Sept.,  Nov.,  1884. 

2  The  Study  of  Sociology,  p.  311. 


420 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


certainly  can  never  die  away.  But  it  is  equally  certain  that 
it  is  only  one  manifestation  of  the  religious  consciousness  and 
of  itself  alone  can  never  constitute  a  religion.  Such  a  religion 
would  be  immoral.  We  are  not  justified  in  trusting  and  serving 
at  a  venture  the  Unknowable,  since,  for  aught  we  can  know,  it 
may  be  the  contradictory  of  all  which  to  us  is  true,  right,  per¬ 
fect  and  good,  of  all  which  to  us  is  wisdom  and  love.  If  the 
agnostic  says  that  the  human  reason  is  not  to  be  distrusted,  that 
the  Unknowable  cannot  be  contradictory  to  reason,  then  it  is  no 
longer  the  Unknowable,  but  is  the  absolute  Reason,  and  th^t 
is  God.  Mr.  Spencer  recognizes  the  absolute  Being,  and  this  is 
essential  in  the  idea  of  a  divinity.  But  in  declaring  it  unknow¬ 
able  he  admits  that  the  universe  may  be  ultimately  grounded  in 
unreason  and  not  in  reason.  More  than  this  is  necessary  to  the 
idea  of  a  divinity  and  the  possibility  of  religion ;  the  absolute 
Being  must  be  recognized  as  the  absolute  Reason  energizing  in 
the  universe,  and  its  ultimate  ground. 

On  the  other  hand,  Mr.  Harrison,  the  great  expounder  and  de¬ 
fender  of  Comte’s  worship  of  Humanity,  recognizes  the  rationality 
of  the  divinity,  but  denies  that  it  is  absolute  Being.  In  fact  it  is 
not  a  being  at  all,  but  only  an  abstract  idea  of  the  wisdom  and 
love,  the  beauty  and  nobleness  of  humanity,  excluding  all  its  im¬ 
perfection  and  weakness,  its  ignorance  and  vice.  But  we  cannot 
worship  an  abstract  idea  constructed  by  our  own  minds.  We  can¬ 
not  be  conscious  of  dependence  on  it,  cannot  commune  with  it, 
cannot  trust  it  and  serve  it.  The  worshiper  of  it,  as  Browning 
says,  is  like  a  boy  riding  astride  a  stick,  who  himself  carries  the 
horse  on  which  he  rides.  The  ancient  Romans  personified  and 
deified  the  virtues.  They  worshiped,  as  goddesses,  Fides,  Pudi- 
citia  and  other  virtues.  Christianity  swept  away  this  worship  and 
revealed  to  us  all  wisdom  and  love,  all  beauty  and  perfection,  all 
truth  and  law,  all  ideals  of  good,  archetypal,  concrete,  eternal  in 
God,  the  absolute  and  universal  Reason,  and,  as  such,  being  the 
fundamental  constitution  of  the  universe.  But  now  that  skep¬ 
ticism  denies  the  God  of  wisdom  and  love,  the  virtues,  dispossessed 
of  their  habitation  in  the  divine  being,  are  again  worshiped,  but 
only  as  elements  of  an  abstract  idea.  Professor  Clifford,  however, 
seems  to  have  been  able  to  carry  this  out  into  a  sort  of  realism 
in  which  he  parodies  the  Christian’s  “  Our  Father  who  art  in 
Heaven  ”  with  u  Our  Father  Man."  “  The  dim  and  shadowy  out¬ 
lines  of  the  superhuman  deity  fade  slowly  away  from  before  us; 
and  as  the  mist  of  his  presence  floats  aside,  we  perceive  with 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  MAN. 


421 


greater  and  greater  clearness  a  yet  grander  and  nobler  figure  of 
him  who  made  all  gods  and  shall  unmake  them.  From  the  dim 
dawn  of  history  and  from  the  inmost  depth  of  every  soul  the  face 
of  our  Father  Man  looks  out  upon  us  with  the  fire  of  eternal  youth 
in  his  eyes,  and  says,  Before  Jehovah  was  I  am.’' 1 

And  if  humanity,  embodied  as  our  Father  Man,  is  to  be  wor¬ 
shiped,  we  may  pertinently  ask  on  what  principle  the  worshiper 
selects  certain  qualities  to  be  combined  as  the  object  of  wor¬ 
ship,  while  leaving  out  many  others  which  in  the  actual  history 
of  humanity  have  been  its  more  common  characteristics. 

Feuerbach  teaches  that  God  is  simply  man  himself  contem¬ 
plated  as  objective.  His  doctrine  issues  in  these  definitions  of 
God  :  “  God  is  the  aspiration  of  the  human  heart  transformed 
into  a  fixedly  blessed  Is,  the  omnipotence  of  the  feeling,  the 
prayer  which  hears  itself,  the  soul  perceiving  itself,  the  echo  of 
our  own  cries  of  distress,  .  .  .  the  free  atmosphere  of  the  heart* 
the  unuttered  pain  of  the  soul.  God  is  a  tear  of  love  shed  in  the 
deepest  concealment  over  human  misery.”  Certainly  such  a  God 
cannot  be  the  object  of  religious  trust  and  service,  nor  meet  any 
of  the  practical  needs  of  religion. 

Ruge  presents  still  another  conception  of  a  humanitarian  relig¬ 
ion  :  “  Religion  in  the  sense  of  humanity-worship  QHumanismus) 
is  conscientiousness,  the  conviction  of  truth  which  binds  us  to 
live  and  act  in  obedience  to  the  highest  and  holiest  law.  It  is 
ardor,  inspiration  for  the  Right  and  the  Good  and  their  realiza¬ 
tion  on  earth ;  consequently  the  noble  passion  for  freedom  and 
right.  For  the  self-conscious  man  is  as  such  free,  he  acknowl¬ 
edges  no  lord  over  himself ;  he  should  therefore  make  himself 
free  from  every  outward  authority,  not  only  of  positive  religion 
and  of  the  church,  but  also  of  the  existing  state,  so  far  as  it  is 
grounded  on  an  antithesis  of  the  lord  and  the  servant,  of  the  gov¬ 
ernment  and  the  subject.'’2  This  leaves  out  the  essential  idea 
of  religion.  It  begins  by  identifying  religion  with  morality  and 
resolves  itself  into  the  loud-mouthed  fervor  for  human  freedom 
which  issues  in  red  republicanism  and  anarchy. 

In  like  manner  if  religion  is  identified  with  morality  or  with 
enthusiasm  for  science,  if  the  universe  itself  is  proposed  as  the 
object  of  religious  reverence,  the  proposed  worship  misses  what  is 
essential  in  religion  and  fails  entirely  to  satisfy  man’s  need  of  re- 

1  Lectures  and  Essays,  vol.  ii.  p.  243,  London  ed.  1879. 

2  Das  Wesen  und  die  innere  Wahrheit  des  Christenthums,  von  Dr.  Wilhelm 
Meyer,  pp.  124,  125,  108,  109. 


422 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


ligion  and  to  subserve  its  ends.  In  fact  they  all  assume  an  im¬ 
passable  gulf  between  man  and  the  absolute  Being.  If  they  do 
not  go  with  Strauss  to  bald  materialism,  their  substitute  for  a  di¬ 
vinity  is  either  the  unknowable  or  a  non-entity ;  and  they  must 
join  in  the  confession  of  Feuerbach:  “  We  adore  the  great  nega¬ 
tion.” 

It  is  not  to  be  expected  that  any  considerable  number  of  per¬ 
sons  will  accept  these  weak  substitutes  for  a  divinity  or  rest  in 
these  artificial  religions.  They  are  at  best  temporary  expedients 
to  break  the  force  of  the  fall  into  atheism.  They  must  issue 
either  in  a  return  to  theism  or  in  the  abandonment  of  religion 
altogether  and  the  substitution  of  culture  in  its  stead.  But  such 
a  culture  would  be  meagre  and  superficial. 

Already  there  is  a  tendency  to  set  up  a  Hellenistic  culture, 
which  substitutes  beauty  for  duty,  the  love  of  truth  defecated 
from  all  interest  in  its  practical  bearings  for  love  to  man,  and 
intellectual  activity  for  religious  faith  ;  a  breezy,  open-air  life,  a 
life  of  enjoyment  in  following  the  impulses  of  nature  for  a  life  of 
concentrated  energy,  of  discipline  and  self-devotion,  of  warfare 
against  evil.  Schiller  in  his  Gods  of  Greece  laments  the  depart¬ 
ure  of  the  old  mythology  :  — 

“  Cold  from  the  North  has  gone 
Over  the  flowers  the  blast  that  killed  the  May ; 

And  to  enrich  the  worship  of  the  One, 

A  universe  of  gods  must  pass  away.” 

But  theism  is  not  antagonistic  to  culture.  On  the  contrary  it 
deepens  and  enriches  it.  If  the  gods  have  vanished  from  the  trees 
and  streams,  from  the  hills,  the  seas  and  the  stars,  yet  no  solitude 
is  made ;  for  the  universe  is  filled  with  God.  A  man  is  a  centre 
to  the  universe.  From  every  side  it  acts  on  him  through  the  eye, 
the  ear  and  every  sense  ;  the  moon  and  planets,  the  sun  and  stars, 
the  immensely  distant  nebulae  pour  their  light  on  him ;  electric¬ 
ity,  gravitation,  all  the  powers  of  nature  act  on  him ;  he  is  cen¬ 
tral  to  the  universe  and  all  its  energies  converge  on  him.  Herein 
he  also  sees  encompassing  and  converging  on  him  the  universal 
Reason  pervading  and  regulating  the  universe  by  the  same  prin¬ 
ciples  which  he  knows  in  his  own  reason.  Thus  he  sees  the  uni¬ 
verse  full  of  God  and  pervaded  with  a  divine  wisdom  and  love. 
Anywhere  the  man  entering  into  his  closet  and  shutting  the  door 
finds  himself  shut  in  with  God  and  communing  with  him.  The 
gods  of  Greece  can  never  return,  and  the  culture  which  grew  up 
around  them  in  that  ancient  age  can  never  be  renewed.  But  the 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  MAN. 


423 


universe  to  us  lias  a  grandeur  and  glory  which  the  ancient  Greeks 
never  knew.  And  in  the  knowledge  of  the  one  God  the  culture 
of  man  has  a  depth  and  breadth  and  richness  which  polytheism 
could  never  produce.  And  any  culture  developed  in  the  absence 
of  all  religion  and  under  the  withering  breath  of  atheism  must 
not  only  be  incapable  of  being  a  substitute  for  religion,  but  as 
culture  must  be  arid  and  barren. 

V.  God  revealed  in  the  course  of  human  history.  — ■ 
The  full  development  of  the  evidence  that  God  reveals  himself  in 
history  would  require  study  of  the  entire  history  of  man.  I  shall 
attempt  only  to  indicate  some  of  the  lines  in  which  the  evidence 
may  be  found. 

1.  The  existence  of  God  is  revealed  in  the  history  of  man’s  re¬ 
ligion  ;  and  is  necessary  to  account  for  its  origin,  its  universality, 
spontaneity,  power  and  persistence,  and  for  its  progressive  devel¬ 
opment. 

As  already  shown,  the  universality,  spontaneity,  power  and 
persistence  of  belief  in  a  divinity  prove  that  it  and  the  religious¬ 
ness  accompanying  it  are  rooted  in  the  constitution  of  man,  and 
that,  if  no  God  exists  and  religion  is  a  delusion,  then  falsehood  is 
incorporated  into  the  constitution  of  man  and  all  knowledge  is 
impossible  through  the  untrustworthiness  of  man’s  mental  pow¬ 
ers.  The  objection  was  formerly  urged,  and  is  still  urged  by  ig¬ 
norant  and  fanatical  unbelievers,  that  religion  was  an  invention 
of  priests  to  keep  the  people  in  subjection.  We  might  ask  how 
there  came  to  be  priests  in  the  first  place,  and  how  men  came  by 
the  belief  in  a  God  and  the  capacities  for  religion  and  morality 
which  made  them  susceptible  of  being  controlled  by  these  influ¬ 
ences.  But  leaving  this,  it  is  evident  that  such  universal,  contin¬ 
uous  and  powerful  forces  in  humanity  as  religion  and  morality 
are  not  inventions  and  contrivances.  They  are  rooted  in  the 
whole  personality  of  man  and  are  the  spontaneous  outgrowth  of 
the  fundamental  principles  of  his  reason  and  of  the  noblest  senti¬ 
ments  and  deepest  needs  of  his  rational  constitution.  They  can 
be  accounted  for  only  on  the  supposition  that  God  exists  and  re¬ 
veals  himself  to  man. 

The  evidence,  however,  does  not  lie  merely  in  the  origin,  uni¬ 
versality  and  continuity  of  the  belief  in  a  divinity,  but  also  in  the 
progressive  development  of  the  knowledge  of  him,  keeping  pace 
with  man’s  advancing  knowledge  of  the  universe. 

It  is  often  objected  that  the  savage  at  first  refers  everything 
to  a  spirit  like  his  own  ;  but  as  fast  as  he  finds  out  the  causes  and 


424 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


order  of  nature,  lie  ceases  to  wonder  and  to  see  a  spirit  in  it ; 
hence  that  it  is  only  in  extraordinary  and  startling  events  that 
the  man  sees  a  divinity.  But  this  does  not  accord  with  the  facts. 
The  gods  of  the  heathen  are  gods  of  the  sun,  of  the  dawn,  of  the 
powers  of  nature  in  their  fixed  courses,  and  not  divinities  known 
only  in  the  extraordinary  and  violent  energies  of  nature.  So 
Mr.  Spencer  truly  says :  “  As  fast  as  the  explanation  of  anoma¬ 
lies  dissipates  the  wonder  they  excited  there  grows  up  a  wonder 
at  the  uniformities;  there  arises  the  question,  how  came  they  to 
be  uniformities?  As  fast  as  science  transfers  more  and  more 
things  from  the  category  of  irregularities  to  the  category  of  regu¬ 
larities,  the  mystery  which  once  attached  to  the  superstitious 
explanation  of  them  becomes  a  mystery  that  attaches  to  the  sci¬ 
entific  explanation  of  them  ;  there  is  a  merging  of  many  special 
mysteries  in  one  general  mystery.”  1  And  the  wonder  of  igno¬ 
rance  is  exceeded  by  the  wonder  of  knowledge. 

If  the  progress  of  man  in  knowledge,  civilization  and  mental 
development  left  the  idea  of  God  behind  as  a  figment  of  the  child¬ 
hood  of  the  race,  the  objection  might  have  some  force.  But  in 
all  his  progress  man  never  leaves  it  behind,  but  retains  and  de-  1 
velops  it.  He  finds  that  it  harmonizes  with  his  increasing  knowl¬ 
edge,  underlies  it  as  the  ground  of  its  reality  and  unity,  and  is 
enriched  by  all  which  science  discovers  of  the  universe  in  and 
through  which  God  is  revealed.  When  in  the  progress  of  knowl¬ 
edge  man  has  attained  the  idea  of  a  cosmos,  then  arises  the  ne¬ 
cessity  of  referring  the  cosmos  itself  with  all  its  order,  law  and 
beauty  to  one  originating  and  perfect  mind  expressing  its  thought 
in  it ;  and  polytheism  gives  place  to  monotheism. 

A  recent  writer  argues  that  u  if  all  religions  have  arisen  from 
the  needs  and  constitution  of  mankind  in  society,  there  can  be  no 
objective  truth  in  any  of  them.”  And,  he  says,  it  is  idle  to  attempt 
by  any  test  to  determine  among  them  the  true  religion,  for  “  ob¬ 
viously  all  religions  are  true,  inasmuch  as  they  meet  the  needs  of 
their  followers.”  That  is,  there  is  no  objective  reality  to  the  di¬ 
vinity  of  any  of  them.  To  this  it  is  sufficient  to  reply  that  this 
reasoning  leads  to  the  denial  of  the  objective  reality  of  all  knowl¬ 
edge,  because  it  impugns  the  trustworthiness  of  man’s  rational 
constitution.  It  must  be  added  that  this  reasoning  rests  on  the 
assumption  that  the  different  forms  of  religious  belief  are  essen¬ 
tially  antagonistic  and  contradictory  ;  that  they  have  no  elements 
in  common.  On  the  contrary  the  fact  is  that  in  all  religions 

1  Study  of  Sociology,  chap.  xii.  p.  310. 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  MAN. 


425 


there  are  common  elements  which  are  retained  and  more  clearly 
and  fully  developed  in  all  the  progress  of  man.  Theism  in  its 
highest  forms  takes  up  into  itself  all  the  elements  of  truth  which 
the  human  mind  has  apprehended  in  its  ruder  forms  of  worship 
and  its  more  imperfect  conceptions  of  the  divinity. 

The  same  writer  declares  that  Christianity  is  only  a  “  veneer¬ 
ing  ”  of  paganism;1  and  other  writers  affirm  that  it  is  only  a 
survival  of  sun-worship,  and  another  that  the  “  wise  men  of  the 
East  ”  were  traveling  Buddhist  priests,  who  imported  elements  of 
the  Buddhist  belief  into  Christianity.  Here  the  very  fact  that 
Christianity  retains  all  the  truths  of  other  and  less  perfect  reli¬ 
gions  is  urged  to  prove  that  it  is  not  a  true  religion  and  that  its 
Trod  has  no  objective  reality.  Just  the  contrary  should  be  the 
inference  ;  that  man  having  some  true  idea  of  God  from  the  be¬ 
ginning,  has  retained  it  through  all  his  progress  and  developed  it 
to  a  more  complete  idea  of  him.  It  would  be  just  as  pertinent  to 
.argue  that  the  human  mind  has  outgrown  physical  science,  because 
it  has  rejected  alchemy  and  astrology  for  chemistry  and  astron¬ 
omy,  because  it  no  longer  believes  in  the  theory  of  Thales  that 
water  is  the  original  of  all  things,  nor  in  phlogiston,  as  to  argue 
that  the  human  mind  has  outgrown  theism  because  it  no  longer 
believes  in  fetichism  and  the  myths  of  polytheism.  The  concep¬ 
tions  which  uncultivated  minds  form  of  supernatural  beings  may 
be  wrong.  They  may  believe  in  hobgoblins  which  have  no  ex¬ 
istence  and  in  myths  which  are  not  true.  They  may  misinter¬ 
pret  the  manifestations  of  God  and  of  the  unseen  world.  But 
this  does  not  disprove  the  belief  in  the  supernatural  and  the  di¬ 
vine.  If  impressions  on  man’s  spiritual  susceptibilities  have  led 
men  to  believe  in  hobgoblins,  impressions  on  the  senses  have  led 
men  to  believe  that  the  moon  is  no  bigger  than  a  cheese  and  that 
the  stars  are  merely  glittering  spangles.  As  such  errors  of  sense 
do  not  destroy  the  credibility  of  physical  science,  so  errors  in  in¬ 
terpreting  spiritual  impressions  do  not  destroy  the  credibility  of 
theism. 

The  necessary  inference  is  that  nothing  but  the  real  existence 
of  God  can  account  for  the  origin,  universality,  spontaneity,  per¬ 
sistence  and  power  of  religion  and  the  belief  in  a  divinity,  and 
for  the  progressive  development  of  the  idea  of  God  keeping  pace 
with  the  advancing  knowledge  and  culture  of  man.  God  must 
have  revealed  himself  to  man  or  the  belief  in  him  could  not  have 
arisen  and  persisted,  spontaneous,  universal  and  powerful,  any 
1  A.  R.  Grote,  The  New  Infidelity,  pp.  45,  46,  25. 


426 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


more  than  a  belief  in  the  sun  could  have  been  universal,  if  the 
sun  had  never  revealed  itself  to  man. 

Opposed  to  this  view  of  the  progressive  development  of  religion, 
and  the  idea  of  God  is  Comte’s  law  of  the  progress  of  thought. 
This  is  the  law  that  knowledge  must  exist  in  three  theoretical 
conditions ;  the  theological  or  fictitious,  the  metaphysical,  and 
the  positive,  which  is  its  last  and  highest  form.  Alike  in  every 
individual  and  in  the  race,  knowledge  must  pass  through  the 
theological  and  metaphysical  stages  in  order  to  attain  its  maturity 
in  positivism.  In  the  theological  stage  of  thought  the  mind  must 
pass  through  three  subordinate  stages.  Man  begins  with  feti¬ 
chism.  He  thinks  every  physical  phenomenon  is  a  manifestation 
of  a  mind  or  spirit  like  his  own  ;  and  therefore  takes  any  object 
as  the  abode  or  shrine  of  a  divinity.  The  next  stage  is  polythe¬ 
ism.  The  supernatural  agencies  are  reduced  in  number  and  only 
the  more  important  natural  powers  are  presided  over  by  a  divin¬ 
ity.  The  next  stage  is  monotheism.  In  the  metaphysical  condi¬ 
tion  phenomena  are  referred  to  entities,  substances,  causes.  In 
the  latest  stages  of  metaphysics  men  substitute,  for  the  multitude 
of  entities  at  first  proposed,  the  one  great  entity,  Nature.  The 
theological  is  the  infantile  state  of  human  intelligence,  its  neces¬ 
sary  point  of  departure ;  the  positive  is  its  fixed  and  final  condi¬ 
tion  ;  and  the  metaphysical  is  the  state  of  transition.  Comte, 
as  the  representative  of  positivism,  rejects  as  unscientific  all  rec¬ 
ognition  of  supernatural  beings,  of  substance,  cause  and  force,  of 
atoms,  molecules  and  ethers.  He  laments  the  use  of  “  the  unfor¬ 
tunate  word  attraction  ”  by  Newton.  He  claims  for  positivism 
exclusive  control  over  human  thought  and  belief ;  he  regards  it 
as  profoundly  incompatible  with  metaphysics  and  theology,  and 
stakes  its  triumph  on  their  overthrow. 

The  decisive  refutation  of  this  law  of  progress  is  that  it  is  ev¬ 
erywhere  contradicted  by  the  facts  of  history.  Comte  himself 
acknowledges  this  to  be  the  one  serious  objection.1 

In  the  present  state  of  anthropological  knowledge  there  is  no 
sufficient  reason  to  believe  that  the  primitive  religion  of  man  was 
fetichism.  On  the  contrary,  “  it  is  a  fact  proved  by  historical 
evidence  that  fetichism  represents  a  secondary  stage  in  the  growth 
of  religion  and  that  it  presupposes  an  earlier  stage  in  which  the 
name  and  concept  of  something  divine,  the  predicate  of  every 
fetich,  was  formed.”  “  Wherever  there  has  been  an  opportunity 

1  Cours  de  Phil.  Positive,  tome  ii.  p.  234;  tome  iv.  p.  709  and  legon  51;  tome 

v.  legons  52-55. 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  MAN. 


427 


of  ascertaining  by  long  and  patient  intercourse  the  religious  sen¬ 
timents  even  of  the  lowest  savage  tribes,  no  tribe  lias  ever  been 
found  without  something  beyond  mere  worship  of  so-called  fe¬ 
tiches.”  “  There  is  ample  evidence  that  the  same  tribes  who  are 
represented  as  fetich-worshipers  believe  either  in  gods  or  in  a  su¬ 
preme  good  God,  the  creator  of  the  world,  and  that  they  possess 
in  their  dialects  particular  names  for  him.”  “  In  Africa  many 
tribes  who  believe  in  fetiches  cherish  at  the  same  time  very  pure, 
very  exalted,  very  true  sentiments  of  the  Deity.  .  .  .  The  very 
tribes  who  were  represented  to  us  as  living  instances  of  fetich- 
worship,  possessed  religious  ideas  of  a  simplicity  and  sometimes 
of  a  sublimity  which  we  look  for  in  vain  even  in  Homer  and  He¬ 
siod.”  1 

Waitz  says:  “A  more  profound  investigation,  such  as  has 
lately  been  carried  out  by  several  eminent  scholars,  leads  to  the 
surprising  result  that  several  negro  tribes,  who  cannot  be  shown 
to  have  experienced  the  influence  of  any  more  civilized  nations, 
have  progressed  much  farther  in  the  elaboration  of  their  religious 
ideas  than  almost  all  other  uncivilized  races ;  if  we  do  not  like  to 
call  them  monotheists,  they  have  come  very  near  to  the  bounda¬ 
ries  of  monotheism,  although  their  religion  is  mixed  with  a  large 
quantity  of  coarse  superstition.”  2  Of  the  religions  of  the  African 
negroes  Tiele  says :  “  The  prominent  characteristic  is  their  un¬ 
limited  fetichism.  ...  A  theistic  tendency  cannot  be  denied  to 
them.  Almost  all  tribes  believe  in  some  supreme  god,  without 
always  worshiping  him.”  3  Mr.  Rae  says  that  Schultze,  in  his 
Fetichismus,  “  is  almost  the  only  surviving  representative  of  the 
theory  which  makes  fetichism  the  initial  form  of  religion.”4 

And  the  three  principal  stages  recognized  in  Comte’s  law  are 
found  not  to  be  successive  as  the  law  requires,  but  coexistent; 
and  that,  not  merely  as  Janet  suggests,  because  different  persons 
and  peoples  pass  through  the  three  stages  with  different  rapidity, 
but  in  the  same  persons  and  peoples.5  In  Lord  Bacon  all  three 
are  conspicuous.  Theological  thought,  a  profound  religious  spirit 
and  eminence  in  physical  science  coexisted  in  Kepler,  Newton 
and  many  others.  The  brilliant  metaphysics  of  Greece  flourished 

1  Max  Mliller,  The  Savage,  Nineteenth  Cent.,  Jan.  1885,  p.  125  ;  Origin  and 
Growth  of  Religion,  pp.  101,  106,  102,  116. 

2  Anthropologie,  vol.  ii.  pp.  167-171. 

3  Ency.  Brit.,  Religions,  vol.  xx.  p.  362. 

4  Reeent  Speculations  on  Primitive  Religions,  Contemporary  Review,  Oct. 
1880. 

6  Theory  of  Morals,  p.  475,  Trans. 


428 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


in  the  midst  of  polytheism.  The  brilliant  era  of  Arabic  science 
coexisted  with  the  most  intense  monotheism.  The  renaissance 
issued  in  a  great  revival  of  theological  thought.  Modern  phys¬ 
ical  science  has  not  issued  in  positivism,  as  Comte  predicted,  but 
has  left  it  behind ;  and  has  itself  become  intensely  metaphysical, 
busying  itself  preeminently  with  forces,  molecules,  ethers  and 
other  metaphysical  ideas,  against  which,  as  unscientific,  Comte  so 
vigorously  protested.  And  aside  from  this,  with  all  the  brilliant 
achievements  of  physical  science,  philosophical  thought  is  in¬ 
tensely  and  widely  active ;  and  never  has  there  been  more  think¬ 
ing  and  more  earnestness  of  thinking  on  religious  themes. 

Comte  also  acknowledges  that  his  law  is  not  found  to  be  true 
in  Asia ;  and  he  entirely  overlooks  Russia  and  America.  And 
the  law  is  not  verified  in  the  development  of  children  any  more 
than  in  the  history  of  the  race.  Multitudes  have  been  thought¬ 
less  of  God  in  childhood  and  youth  who  have  been  awakened  to 
deep  religiousness  in  mature  life. 

In  anticipation  of  Comte,  a  theory  of  the  progress  of  thought 
essentially  the  same  with  his  had  been  propounded  by  Turgot.1 
It  is  one  of  many  attempts  to  express  the  significance  of  great 
periods  of  history  in  a  single  generalization.  The  German  ideal¬ 
ists  have  proceeded  on  the  principle  that  a  theory  of  history  is  to 
be  first  formed  in  their  own  minds  and  then  simply  to  be  exem¬ 
plified  and  illustrated  from  the  facts  of  history.  “  According  to 
Fichte,  history  is  but  the  biography  of  the  absolute  Ego  from 
the  infancy  to  the  maturity  of  reason,  through  the  five  great 
epochs  of  instinct,  authority,  reflection,  science  and  philosophy. 
According  to  Schelling,  it  is  the  self-evolution  of  the  absolute 
Mind,  as  revealed  in  humanity  through  the  three  periods  of  fate, 
of  natural  law  and  of  providence.  According  to  Hegel,  who  re¬ 
duced  history  as  well  as  nature  to  sheer  logic,  it  is  the  human 
development  of  the  absolute  Reason,  the  dialectic  of  nations,  the 
great  argument  of  successive  civilizations,  beginning  in  China, 
continuing  in  India,  Egypt  and  Greece,  and  issuing  in  Germany 
as  a  complete  triumph  of  art,  religion  and  philosophy.  Cousin 
found  in  all  history,  as  the  only  possible  phases  of  civilization, 
the  three  ideas  and  epochs  of  the  infinite,  the  finite  and  the  rela¬ 
tion  between  them,  with  their  predetermining  climates,  the  Asi¬ 
atic,  the  Mediterranean  and  the  European.”  2  When  history  is 
studied  for  the  purpose  of  verifying  such  theories,  the  results  can- 

1  Flint’s  Phil,  of  History  in  France  and  Germany,  p.  113. 

2  Prof.  Shields,  The  Final  Philosophy,  p.  213. 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  MAN. 


429 


not  be  trustworthy.  The  history  will  be  shaped  to  the  theory, 
not  the  theory  to  the  history.  Such  theories  perhaps  attract  at¬ 
tention  as  ingenious  speculations  for  a  time  and  then  sink  into 
oblivion.  Comte’s  theory  excited  not  a  little  discussion  for  a  few 
years  ;  but  it  is  already  sinking  into  the  oblivion  of  its  many 
analogous  predecessors. 

We  have  already  seen  that  knowledge  on  any  subject  attains 
completeness  only  by  passing  through  the  three  grades  of  em¬ 
pirical,  noetic  or  rationalistic,  and  theological  thought.1  The  true 
course  of  thought  is  the  reverse  of  that  set  forth  in  Comte’s  law ; 
for  it  culminates  with  the  theological  and  begins  with  the  empir¬ 
ical.  It  also  differs  from  Comte’s  law  in  this,  that  the  human  mind 
is  not  occupied  with  the  three  stages  successively,  and  with  each 
for  a  long  period  of  time  ;  but  always,  whatever  it  investigates, 
the  mind  passes  through  the  three  stages  of  thought  in  order  to 
complete  its  knowledge  of  it.  Hence  we  do  not  distinguish  them 
as  respectively  transitional  and  permanent,  but  man’s  knowledge 
is  permanent  in  the  continuous  use  of  the  three  in  connection  and 
unity.  And  it  is  equally  true  that  he  has  been  always  and  simul¬ 
taneously  occupied  with  the  three  spheres  of  knowledge,  nature, 
man  and  God.  And  the  facts  of  history  show  that,  from  age  to 
age,  the  progress  of  knowledge  has  been  going  on  at  the  same 
time  in  each  grade,  empirical,  rationalistic  and  theological,  and 
in  each  sphere,  nature,  man  and  God.  Comte  confounds  the¬ 
ology  with  superstition  and  charges  on  it  errors  which  were  due 
only  to  the  prevailing  ignorance  of  an  early  age.  He  identifies 
theology  with  ignorance,  and  relegates  all  the  ignorance  of  an 
age  to  its  theology.  He  represents  the  progress  from  ignorance 
to  knowledge  as  the  progress  from  theology  to  science.  The 
truth  is  that  in  the  earlier  ages  man  was  ignorant  on  all  subjects. 
If  his  theology  was  childish,  so  also  were  his  philosophy  and  his 
empirical  science.  Ignorance  and  immaturity  characterized  his 
thinking  on  God  ;  they  equally  characterized  his  thinking  respect¬ 
ing  man  and  nature.  His  progress  from  ignorance  to  knowledge 
on  all  subjects  has  been  simultaneous.  The  progress  of  science, 
therefore,  does  not  expel  the  belief  in  a  divinity  nor  remove  the 
necessity  of  ultimately  explaining  all  phenomena  by  it.  It  makes 
the  idea  of  God  and  his  relations  to  the  universe  more  intelligent, 
but  not  less  true  or  less  urgent. 

2.  History  shows  that  atheism,  wherever  it  has  prevailed,  has 
been  disastrous  to  the  interests  of  society. 

1  Phil.  Basis  of  Theism,  pp.  293-344. 


430 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


The  prevalence  of  avowed  atheism  in  any  nation  or  community 
has  been  of  rare  occurrence  and  of  short  duration.  The  reign  of 
atheism  in  France  in  the  first  revolution,  for  example,  was  short, 
and  probably  controlled  the  belief  of  but  a  small  minority  of  the 
population. 

Where  atheism  has  prevailed  it  has  proved  disastrous.  The 
reign  of  atheism  in  France  is  known  in  history  as  the  Reign  of 
Terror.  The  decay  of  the  ancient  religion  in  the  Roman  empire 
and  the  attendant  gradual  coming  in  of  skepticism  and  atheism 
were  accompanied  with  general  corruption  of  morals  and  an  en¬ 
feebling  and  disintegrating  of  society. 

Conversely,  the  theories  and  revolutionary  schemes  of  anarch¬ 
ists  demand  the  rejection  of  all  belief  in  God.  The  nihilists 
and  revolutionists  of  all  types,  who  are  now  seeking  to  destroy 
government  and  to  resolve  society  into  anarchy,  agree  in  declar¬ 
ing  that  the  first  necessity  is  to  root  out  all  belief  in  God. 

The  argument  is  of  equal  force,  whether  atheism  is  in  these 
cases  a  cause  or  a  consequent  of  the  corruption,  and  of  the  an¬ 
archical  violence  and  terrorism.  If  it  is  a  cause,  then  it  is  re¬ 
sponsible  for  these  evils.  If  it  is  a  consequent,  then  theism  is  a 
barrier  against  corruption,  terrorism  and  anarchy,  which  must 
be  broken  down  before  they  can  prevail. 

3.  A  third  line  of  argument  from  history  would  consist  in 
pointing  out  the  influence  of  religious  belief  in  the  progress  of 
civilization.  The  presentation  of  this  evidence  would  require  a 
study  of  the  whole  history  of  man ;  its  scope  is  too  wide  for  pres¬ 
entation  here.  But  by  all  my  study  of  the  subject  I  am  con¬ 
vinced  that  religious  belief  has  been  an  essential  factor  in  the 
progress  of  man  and  of  civilization  ;  that  this  progress  could  never 
have  been  realized  in  atheism ;  that  religious  belief  is  essential 
not  only  to  progress  but  also  to  the  supremacy  of  law,  to  the  sta¬ 
bility,  order,  intelligence  and  virtue  of  the  community ;  that  it 
is  thus  essential  to  preserve  the  results  already  attained  and  to 
prevent  degeneracy  into  corruption,  disorder  and  violence,  and  a 
return  to  a  barbarism,  which,  in  the  use  of  the  agencies  of  civili¬ 
zation  with  the  spirit  and  recklessness  of  barbarism,  would  be  the 
most  terrific  the  world  has  ever  seen. 

One  of  the  marked  characteristics  of  modern  civilization  is  the 
great  industrial  movement  which  is  exalting  industrial  enterprise 
into  a  public  function,  is  determining  the  welfare  of  nations,  and 
giving  scope  for  the  genius  and  ambition  which  aforetime  found 
no  sphere  but  in  politics  and  war.  It  would  be  easy  to  show 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  MAN,  431 

that  Christianity  has  been  one  of  the  most  powerful  agencies  in 
effecting  this  change. 

For  four  hundred  years  the  great  struggle  in  political  life  has 
been  to  break  down  despotism  and  elevate  the  people  to  self- 
government.  Underlying  this  are  the  great  principles  of  the 
worth  of  a  man  and  the  sacred  ness  of  his  rights  inherent  in  his 
personality  as  a  man ;  the  equality  of  men  before  the  law ;  the 
existence  of  government  for  the  good  of  the  governed,  and  the 
like.  It  was  Christ  who  made  these  principles  powers  in  civili¬ 
zation.  He  taught  that  a  man  is  worth  more  than  a  world  ;  he 
revealed  God’s  estimate  of  the  worth  of  a  man  in  all  which  he 
does  in  Christ  to  turn  him  from  sin  and  bring  him  back  to  God. 
He  declares  the  equality  of  all  men  before  God  ;  each  man  is  jus¬ 
tified  by  his  own  faith  and  admitted  to  free  communion  with  God 
without  the  intervention  of  any  priest  or  any  human  mediation. 
And  in  the  Fatherhood  of  God  he  gives  a  real  and  immovable 
basis  for  the  brotherhood  of  man.  Nothing  short  of  the  God 
over  all  can  be  the  basis  for  the  political  equality  and  freedom  of 
men. 

The  Lutheran  revival  in  religion  preceded  the  Baconian  revival 
in  science.  And  the  Lutheran  revival  was  a  breaking  away  from 
authority  in  the  sphere  of  thought  to  original  investigation,  from 
the  authority  of  the  Aristotelian  logic  not  less  than  of  the  church. 
It  was  an  assertion  of  the  right  of  private  judgment,  a  return  to 
dealing  with  concrete  realities  instead  of  abstractions  and  words, 
a  subordination  of  speculative  inquiry  to  the  practical  needs  and 
uses  of  men.  These  were  the  very  principles  of  the  Baconian 
movement ;  and  they  were  applied  by  Luther  in  theology  before 
they  were  applied  by  Bacon  in  science.  And  in  the  Reformation 
it  was  religion  and  theology  which  waked  the  human  mind,  and 
aroused  the  activity  of  thought  which  has  since  achieved  so  great 
results  in  physical  science. 

And  so  in  all  human  progress  it  is  the  spiritual  which  pre¬ 
cedes  and  quickens  the  progress  of  discovery  and  invention  in 
the  physical.1 

In  fact  we  are  indebted  to  religion  for  that  fixed  belief  in  prog¬ 
ress  which  is  now  accepted  as  a  sort  of  axiom  in  the  face  of  all 
discouragements.  It  is  the  prophecy  and  promise  of  the  Hebrew 
and  Christian  religion  through  the  ages  which  have  incorporated 
into  human  thinking  the  expectation  that  the  future  is  to  be 
better  than  the  past. 

1  Phil.  Basis  of  Theism,  330-333. 


432 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


And  the  more  elevated  and  true  the  idea  of  God,  the  more 
rapid  and  genuine  has  been  the  progress  of  man.  Accordingly 
for  many  centuries  history  has  shown  that  the  only  progressive 
nations  have  been  the  Christian  nations.  And  now  progress  is 
beginning  among  the  oriental  peoples  only  as  it  has  been  stimu¬ 
lated  and  guided  from  Christendom. 

4.  There  can  be  no  satisfactory  philosophy  of  human  history 
without  the  recognition  of  God  and  of  man's  relation  to  him  in  a 
moral  and  spiritual  system. 

An  examination  of  human  history  discovers  a  progress  of  man 
toward  the  realization  of  a  higher  and  better  condition  and  the 
appearance  more  and  more  clearly  of  the  advancing  reign  of 
righteousness,  peace  and  universal  good-will.  It  discovers  a  plan 
pervading  history  and  progressivel}7  realized  by  the  action  of  man 
under  the  influence  of  his  surroundings ;  but  it  is  plainly  not  a 
plan  which  men  have  devised  or  by  any  concert  agreed  on,  any 
more  than  the  coral  polyps  ever  agreed  on  the  plan  according  to 
which  by  the  labors  of  many  generations  they  build  a  Neptune's 
cup.  Writers  on  the  philosophy  of  history  refer  to  the  various 
agencies  which  have  cooperated  in  bringing  mankind  to  the  high¬ 
est  advancement  which  it  has  yet  attained.  They  tell  us  what 
was  contributed  by  the  Greek  civilization  and  culture,  what  by 
the  Roman,  what  by  the  Hebrew.  They  tell  us  of  the  far-reach¬ 
ing  influence,  in  promoting  civilization  and  progress,  of  great 
wars,  of  scientific  discoveries,  of  industrial  inventions  ;  of  the  ser¬ 
vice  rendered  by  Charlemagne,  by  Napoleon  ;  of  the  preparation 
for  the  coming  of  Christ  and  the  spread  of  Christianity  made  by 
the  Roman  conquests  and  the  Greek  philosophy.  Nothing  can 
be  more  certain  than  that  these  various  agents  acted  without  con¬ 
cert  and  without  conscious  design  of  realizing  a  preconceived  plan 
for  the  progress  which  humanity  has  made  and  to  which  in  fact 
they  were  important  contributors.  We  are  driven  to  the  infer¬ 
ence  that  there  is  in  the  history  of  man  a  progressive  realization 
of  an  ideal  plan  which  cannot  be  referred  to  man  himself,  but 
must  be  referred  to  some  superior  and  all-embracing  wisdom  su¬ 
perintending  and  directing  his  progress.1 

In  fact  the  very  conception  of  a  philosophy  of  human  history 
presupposes  that  it  has  the  unity  and  significance  of  a  plan  carried 
forward  through  the  ages.  The  fact  that  the  courses  of  human 
history  can  be  thus  comprehended  in  a  philosophy  implies  that 

1  “  Deus  ordinem  seculorum  tanquam  pulclierrimum  carmen  honestaret.”  — 
De  Civitate  Dei ,  lib.  xi,  cap.  18. 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  MAN. 


433 


the  history  is  philosophical ;  that  there  is  a  philosophy  in  it ;  that 
therefore  there  must  be  above  it  some  superintending  and  direct¬ 
ing  mind,  progressively  realizing  a  grand  ideal  in  the  development 
of  man. 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  an  attempt  is  made  to  find  a  philosophy 
of  history  without  God,  no  such  philosophy  will  be  found  ;  it  will 
be  impracticable  to  bring  the  facts  into  the  unity  of  a  philosoph¬ 
ical  system.  And  in  addition  to  this,  the  whole  history  of  man 
will  be  found  to  be  without  worthy  significance  or  end. 

The  Bible  declares  that  God  is  establishing  on  earth  a  king¬ 
dom  or  reign  of  God,  which  is  to  be  a  kingdom  of  righteous¬ 
ness,  peace  and  good-will.  With  this  conception  of  God  and  of 
man  under  God’s  law  in  a  moral  and  spiritual  system,  of  man’s 
sin  and  God’s  redeeming  energy  working  in  and  with  man  for 
his  renovation,  development  and  blessedness,  and  of  the  gradual 
transformation  of  human  society  into  the  kingdom  of  God,  we 
find  a  worthy  significance  and  design  of  human  history. 

If  all  men  eventually  become  worshipers  of  the  one  only  living 
and  true  God,  if  as  the  children  of  God,  their  common  Father, 
they  dwell  together  in  righteousness,  peace  and  good-will,  then 
the  history  of  man  will  have  demonstrated  the  existence  and 
reign  of  God.  And  already  the  progress  of  man  and  the  course 
of  his  development  admit  no  satisfactory  explanation  without 
the  recognition  of  God  and  of  man’s  relation  to  him  in  a  moral 
system. 

But  this  line  of  thought  reaches  too  far  to  be  even  entered 
on  here.  I  can  merely  call  attention  to  it  as  a  line  of  evidence 
which  will  richly  repay  investigation. 

VI.  Anthropomorphism.  —  The  objection  is  urged  that,  after 
all,  the  idea  of  God  is  anthropomorphic  ;  it  is  a  fiction  which  man 
creates  from  the  attributes  of  his  own  mind.  Feuerbach,  for  ex¬ 
ample,  says :  “Man  —  this  is  the  mystery  of  religion  —  projects 
his  being  into  objectivity ;  and  then  again  he  converts  this  pro¬ 
jected  image  of  himself  into  a  subject  to  which  he  himself  becomes 
an  object.  Man  is  an  object  to  God.  It  is  not  indifferent  to  God 
that  man  is  good  or  evil.”  1  The  man  creates  his  own  God  by 
unconsciously  projecting  his  own  attributes  outside  of  himself  and 
illuding  himself  with  the  belief  that  it  is  a  real  being  other  than 
himself,  and  then  worships  it  as  God.  Thus  a  man’s  God,  like 
the  spectre  on  the  Brocken,  is  only  a  magnified  shadow  of  him¬ 
self.  Herbert  Spencer  puts  the  objection  thus  :  “  If  for  a  moment 

1  Wesen  des  Christenthums,  chap.  i.  §  2. 

28 


484 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


we  made  the  grotesque  supposition  that  the  ticking  and  other 
movements  of  a  watch  constituted  a  kind  of  consciousness,  and 
that  a  watch  possessed  of  such  a  consciousness  insisted  on  re¬ 
garding  the  watchmaker’s  action  as  determined,  like  its  own,  by 
springs  and  escapements,  we  should  simply  complete  a  parallel  of 
which  religious  teachers  think  much.  And  were  we  to  suppose 
that  a  watch  not  only  formulated  the  cause  of  its  existence  in 
these  mechanical  terms,  but  held  that  watches  were  bound  out  of 
reverence  so  to  formulate  this  cause,  and  even  vituperated,  as 
atheistic  watches,  any  that  did  not  venture  so  to  formulate  it,  we 
should  merely  illustrate  the  presumption  of  theologians  by  carry¬ 
ing  their  own  argument  a  step  further.”  1  The  same  objection 
has  been  often  urged  in  various  forms.  Mr.  Huxley  uses  a  death- 
watch  ticking  in  a  clock,  and  a  piano  listening  to  its  own  music. 
Hume  tells  us  of  a  world  of  spiders  imagining  the  creator  to  be 
an  infinite  spider  which  spun  the  world  out  of  its  own  bowels.  In 
the  earlier  Greek  philosophy,  Xenophanes  presents  the  objection 
of  anthropomorphism  in  essentially  the  same  form.  He  says  that 
men  of  different  races  picture  their  gods  like  themselves.  The 
Thracians  picture  them  as  fair  and  red-haired,  the  Ethiopians  as 
black  and  flat-nosed.  And  so,  he  says,  if  lions,  oxen  and  horses 
knew  the  art  of  drawing,  they  would  depict  their  gods  severally 
in  their  own  forms.  And  so,  it  is  objected,  men  deceive  them¬ 
selves,  “  describing  the  Immortals  in  the  language  of  mortals.”  2 
It  is  only  an  example  of  “  our  inclination  to  find  our  own  figures 
in  the  clouds,  our  faces  in  the  moon,  our  passions  and  sentiments 
even  in  inanimate  matter.” 

The  first  answer  is  that  the  objection  makes  no  distinction  be¬ 
tween  the  attributes  and  character  peculiar  to  personality  in  its 
perfection  and  the  non-essential  forms  in  which  personality  is 
manifested.  The  theologian  always  distinguishes  between  a  rhe¬ 
torical  or  poetical  ascription  to  God  of  hands  or  eyes,  of  anger  or 
repentance,  of  human  organs  and  passions  which  are  not  essen¬ 
tial  to  personality  and  its  perfection,  and  a  philosophical  recog¬ 
nition  of  God  as  the  absolute  Reason  energizing  freely  in  wisdom 
and  love,  which  are  of  the  essence  of  personality  in  its  perfec¬ 
tion.  This  distinction  the  objection  entirely  overlooks.  The  ob¬ 
jection  rests  on  the  absurdity  that  if  a  watch  should  become 
endowed  with  reason  it  would  still  remain  a  mere  machine  just 

1  First  Principles,  pp.  110,  111. 

2  “  Immortalia  mortali  sermone  notantes.”  —  Lucretius,  De  Rerum  Naturci, 
lib.  v.  121. 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  MAN. 


435 


as  it  was  before,  and  therefore  would  see  nothing  in  itself  but 
mechanism  and  could  ascribe  nothing  but  mechanism  to  its  maker. 
But  if  a  watch  were  endowed  with  reason  if  would  no  longer  be 
a  mere  machine,  but  a  rational  person.  Then  contemplating  its 
own  mechanism,  it  would  infer,  precisely  as  a  rational  man  does1 
in  contemplating  it,  that  it  had  a  maker  like  itself  in  intelligence, 
but  not  necessarily  like  itself  in  its  mechanism.  And  should  this 
intelligent  watch  ridicule  all  intelligent  watches  that  believe  they 
were  made  by  an  intelligent  maker,  it  would  be  like  Mr.  Spen¬ 
cer  ridiculing  intelligent  men  for  believing  their  creator  to  be  an 
intelligent  being  ;  and  thus  I  “  merely  illustrate  the  presumption 
of”  Mr.  Spencer  “by  carrying”  his  “argument  one  step  further.” 

And  this  is  evident  not  merely  from  the  whimsical  analogies 
in  which  the  objection  has  so  often  been  expressed,  but  also  in  its 
more  scientific  statement.  Mr.  John  Fiske  says:  “  The  defini¬ 
tion  of  intelligence  being  4  the  continuous  adjustment  of  special¬ 
ized  inner  relations  to  specialized  outer  relations,’  it  follows  that 
to  represent  the  Deity  as  intelligent  is  to  surround  him  with  an 
environment,  and  thus  to  destroy  his  infinity  and  his  self-exist¬ 
ence.”  1  Mr.  Spencer  says  :  “  So  too  must  die  out  the  belief  that 
a  Power  present  in  innumerable  worlds  throughout  infinite  space, 
and  who  during  millions  of  years  needed  no  honoring  by  the  in¬ 
habitants  of  earth,  should  be  seized  with  a  craving  for  praise ; 
and  having  created  mankind,  should  be  angry  with  them  if  they 
do  not  perpetually  tell  him  how  great  he  is.  .  .  .  Passing 
over  the  familiar  difficulties  that  a  god  who  repents  of  what  he 
has  done  must  be  lacking  either  in  power  or  in  foresight ;  that 
his  anger  presupposes  an  occurrence  which  has  been  contrary  to 
intention,  and  so  indicates  a  defect  of  means  ;  we  come  to  the 
deeper  difficulty  that  such  emotions,  in  common  with  all  emotions, 
can  exist  only  in  a  consciousness  which  is  limited.”  This  is  the 
reasoning  of  which  Mr.  Harrison  says  :  “  As  a  summary  of  phi¬ 
losophical  conclusions  on  the  theological  problem  it  seems  to  me 
frankly  unanswerable.  It  is  the  last  word  of  the  agnostic  phi¬ 
losophy  in  its  long  controversy  with  theology.”  2  Mr.  Fiske 
makes  no  distinction  between  what  is  essential  in  rationality  and 
personality  and  what  is  merely  a  particular  and  contingent  form 
iu  which  it  is  manifested  ;  and  infers  that  because  man  is  sur¬ 
rounded  with  an  environment  God  must  be  so.  Mr.  Spencer, 
with  his  indorser,  falls  into  the  same  error ;  he  also  criticises 

1  Cosmic  Philosophy,  vol.  ii.  pp.  394,  395. 

2  Nineteenth  Century,  Jan.  1884,  pp.  6,  7  ;  and  March,  1884,  p.  494. 


436 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


rhetorical  and  poetical  anthropomorphisms  as  philosophical  prop¬ 
ositions  ;  and  besides  this,  founds  his  reasoning  on  an  astounding 
caricature  of  theism  of  his  own  invention.  And  Mr.  Harrison  de¬ 
clares  his  inference  from  this  monstrous  misrepresentation  to  be 
“  an  unanswerable  summary  of  philosophical  conclusions.” 

The  objector  insists  on  ascribing  to  God  the  limitations  and  im¬ 
perfections  of  man.  But  reason  and  freedom,  righteousness  and 
benevolence,  wisdom  and  love,  truth,  right,  perfection  and  worth, 
are  not  limitations  and  imperfections  ;  they  are  eternal  and  uni¬ 
versal.  Man  participates  in  them  ;  and  they  are  rightly  ascribed 
to  God.  But  no  theologian  ascribes  to  God  the  finiteness,  the 
imperfection  of  man,  nor  any  human  characteristic  which  is  not 
essential  to  rational  personality  in  its  perfection.  The  objection 
proves  no  more  than  that  it  is  absurd  and  ridiculous  to  hold  it  as 
philosophical  truth  that  God  has  the  eyes  or  ears  or  passions  of  a 
man.  But  the  objection  is  of  no  force  whatever  against  attributing 
to  him  reason  and  freedom,  righteousness  and  benevolence,  wis¬ 
dom  and  love,  intelligence  and  power.  When  Mr.  Spencer  attrib¬ 
utes  Power  and  Being  to  the  Unknowable  Absolute,  he  is  just  as 
anthropomorphic  as  is  the  theist  when  he  attributes  reason  to  the 
Absolute.  For  man  has  no  knowledge  of  power  and  being  ex¬ 
cept  through  his  own  consciousness.  So  also  he  is  as  anthropo¬ 
morphic  as  the  theist  in  saying,  in  the  article  quoted,  “  that  the 
power  which  manifests  itself  in  consciousness  is  but  a  differently 
conditioned  form  of  the  power  which  manifests  itself  beyond  con¬ 
sciousness.” 

A  second  answer  to  the  objection  is  that  all  scientific  knowl¬ 
edge  of  nature  is  anthropomorphic  in  the  same  sense  in  which 
theism  is  so.  The  postulation  of  the  universality  of  reason  and 
of  man’s  participation  in  its  light  is  at  the  basis  of  all  science.  If 
this  is  anthropomorphism  in  theology  it  is  equally  anthropo¬ 
morphism  in  all  scientific  thinking. 

Physical  science  accepts  our  observation  of  outward  things, 
though  made  through  impressions  on  our  own  senses,  as  true 
knowledge  of  objective  reality.  The  knowledge  of  the  beings 
and  forces  of  which  physical  science  treats  is  given  in  our  own 
consciousness.  Our  knowledge  of  being  is  primarily  given  in  our 
knowledge  of  ourselves  and  of  the  objects  which  impinge  on  our 
sensorium.  Our  knowledge  of  force  is  given  in  our  own  con¬ 
sciousness  in  exerting  or  resisting  it.  Du  Bois  Reymond  says : 
“  Force  is  nothing  but  a  hidden  out-birth  from  the  resistless  ten¬ 
dency  to  personification  which  is  impressed  on  us,  like  the  rhetor- 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  MAN. 


437 


ical*knack  of  our  brain  in  using  figurative  terms  when  the  repre¬ 
sentation  of  anything  lacks  clearness.  In  the  ideas  of  force  and 
matter  we  see  the  same  dualism  which  thrusts  itself  forward  in 
the  representation  of  God  and  the  world,  soul  and  body.  It 
is  a  more  refined  form  of  the  necessity  which  once  impelled  men 
to  people  the  woods  and  the  fountains,  rocks,  sea  and  air  with 
creations  of  their  own  imagination.”  1  The  hypothesis  of  atoms 
and  molecules  arises  from  a  necessity  of  our  own  minds  to  refer 
qualities  to  a  being,  action  to  an  agent,  and  ultimately  to  a  de¬ 
terminate,  indivisible  being.  The  scientific  conception  of  poten¬ 
tial  force  as  distinguished  from  active  energy,  is  derived  from 
our  own  consciousness  of  power  unexerted  in  free  will ;  and  the 
same  is  the  source  of  the  materialistic  conception  of  mind  as  a 
property  of  matter,  contained  “  potentially  ”  in  the  original  homo¬ 
geneous  and  nebulous  matter.  The  attraction  and  repulsion  of 
physical  science  are  nothing  but  our  own  pull  and  push  trans¬ 
ferred  to  external  bodies.  The  mechanical  theory  of  the  universe 
is  derived  from  the  conception  of  a  machine  made  by  man.  Mr. 
Darwin  describing  the  fertilization  of  plants  by  insects  continu¬ 
ally  speaks  of  arrangements  made  “in  order  that  ”  certain  re¬ 
sults  may  be  secured.  He  uses  the  anthropomorphic  language 
of  final  causes  because  no  other  can  so  exactly  express  the  ob¬ 
served  facts.  Nature,  when  we  come  to  investigate  it,  is  found 
to  be  essentially  anthropomorphic.  Scientists  sometimes  try  to 
avoid  this  by  using  more  abstract  and  general  terms.  But  in 
proportion  as  they  do  this,  they  make  their  language  colorless 
and  rob  it  of  distinctive  meaning.  For  example,  when  Mr. 
Spencer  defines  life  as  “  the  continuous  adjustment  of  internal 
relations  to  external  relations,”  the  relations  being  indefinite,  the 
definition  is  equally  applicable  to  a  multitude  of  adjustments  ;  and 
“  adjustments,”  the  only  word  which  has  a  distinctive  meaning, 
has  itself  no  meaning  except  as  the  act  of  a  mind. 

In  addition  to  this,  the  ideas  and  laws  in  which  science  appre¬ 
hends,  differentiates  and  comprehends  material  things  are  ideas 
of  the  human  mind.  Kant  says  :  “  An  idea  must  lie  as  the 
ground  of  the  possibility  of  a  product  of  nature.”  2  Plato  had 
taught  before  him,  that  in  every  observation  made  by  the  senses 
the  reason  disengages  an  element  exclusively  its  own,  which, 
until  this  disengagement,  had  been  mingled  and  hidden  in  the 
complex  result.  He  aimed  to  trace  all  that  is  presented  to  the 

1  Quoted  by  Ulrici,  Gott  und  die  Natur,  p.  25. 

2  Kritik  der  Urtheilskraft,  sect.  65. 


438 


THE  SELF-RE YELATION  OF  GOD. 


senses  in  the  visible  world,  down  to  its  root  in  a  deeper  and  in¬ 
visible  world  ;  and  he  held  that  the  notion  of  a  perfect  science  is 
a  delusion  when  it  does  not  penetrate  to  this  profounder  reality. 
And  modern  science  is  practically  in  accord  with  these  teachings 
of  both  ancient  and  modern  philosophy.  Observed  facts  and 
rational  ideas  are  both  indispensable  to  science.  Facts  may  be 
observed  through  the  senses ;  but  science  is  attained  only  when 
the  observed  facts  are  known  in  tlieir  significance  to  intelligence, 
in  their  order  and  harmony  under  law,  in  their  progressive  reali¬ 
zation  of  rational  ideals  and  ends,  and  thus  in  their  unity  in  a 
rational  system.  Hence  the  physical  world  and  its  movements 
and  changes  lay  open  to  the  observation  of  the  senses  of  man 
for  ages  while  scientific  knowledge  of  them  was  slowly  and  labo¬ 
riously  attained.  But  the  scientific  significance,  order,  progres¬ 
siveness  and  unity  of  the  facts  are  found  only  in  their  accordance 
with  the  ideas,  principles,  laws,  ideals  and  ends  of  human  reason 
and  intelligence.  Physical  science  consists  in  taking  up  the 
realities  of  the  outward  world  into  the  intellectual  equivalents 
of  human  intelligence ;  thus  it  is  as  essentially  anthropomorphic 
as  theism.  This  however  is  no  evidence  that  it  is  not  true,  but 
just  the  contrary,  that  it  is  true  science.  It  finds  that  nature  in 
its  essential  constitution  is  anthropomorphic ;  it  is  constituted 
rationally  ;  it  is  expressive  of  the  ideas  and  principles  of  human 
reason,  accordant  with  its  truths  and  laws,  and  developing  pro¬ 
gressively  toward  the  realization  of  its  ideals  and  ends. 

Science  also  assumes  that  the  principles  of  reason  regulative  of 
human  thought  and  action  are  regulative  of  thought  and  action 
throughout  the  universe  ;  and  that  the  conclusions  resting  on 
them  respecting  observed  facts  are  valid  conclusions  throughout 
the  universe.  Astronomy  applies  these  principles  and  conclusions 
to  masses  and  systems  in  remotest  space  ;  microscopy,  to  bodies 
and  motions  too  minute  to  be  perceived  by  the  naked  eye ;  chem¬ 
istry,  to  the  action  and  reaction  of  molecules  in  the  inmost  com¬ 
position  of  matter;  geology  and  paleontology,  to  the  formation  of 
this  planet  into  a  habitable  world  and  to  the  life  on  it  from  the 
most  ancient  times ;  and  evolution,  beyond  the  universe  as  now 
constituted  to  the  primitive  nebulous  matter  from  which  it  has 
been  evolved.  All  this  rests  on  the  assumption  that  the  prin¬ 
ciples  regulative  of  human  thought  and  action  are  equally  regu¬ 
lative  of  all  thought  and  action  throughout  the  universe ;  that 
what  is  absurd  to  the  human  reason  is  absurd  and  impossible  to 
be  realized  everywhere ;  that  therefore  the  universe  is  pervaded 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  MAN. 


439 


and  directed  by  one  and  the  same  universal  Reason,  the  same,  in 
its  essential  constituent  principles,  with  the  reason  of  man ;  and 
that  all  rational  intelligence  is  everywhere  and  always  essentially 
the  same  in  kind.  Accordingly  Mr.  Fiske  says:  “From  first  to 
last  all  our  speculative  successes  and  failures  have  agreed  in  teach¬ 
ing  us  that  the  more  general  principles  of  action  which  prevail 
to-day  and  in  our  own  corner  of  the  universe  have  always  pre¬ 
vailed  throughout  as  much  of  the  universe  as  is  accessible  to  our 
research.  They  have  taught  us  that  for  the  deciphering  of  the 
past  and  the  predicting  of  the  future  no  hypotheses  are  admis¬ 
sible  which  are  not  based  on  the  actual  behavior  of  things  at 
present.”  1 

Theism  simply  accepts  this  and  declares  that  the  universal 
Reason  thus  found  pervading  and  directing  the  universe  is  God, 
and  that  man  as  rational  is  in  the  likeness  of  God. 

A  third  answer  to  the  objection  is  that  it  rests  on  the  assump¬ 
tion  of  the  relativity  and  consequent  untrustworthiness  of  all  hu¬ 
man  knowledge,  and,  if  valid,  makes  all  human  knowledge  im¬ 
possible.  It  is  merely  a  rhetorical  and  pictorial  way  of  reassert¬ 
ing  this  familiar  doctrine  of  complete  agnosticism.  The  objection 
implies  that  if  any  man  assumes  that  the  mind  of  another  is  like 
his  own,  that  the  mathematical  axioms  and  demonstrations  which 
are  true  to  him  are  true  anywhere  beyond  his  own  subjective 
consciousness,  or  that  any  principle  on  which  he  reasons  or  any 
conclusion  which  he  reaches  is  true  beyond  his  subjective  con¬ 
sciousness,  his  assumption  is  anthropomorphic,  fictitious  and  false. 

Finally,  I  recall  attention  to  the  fact  that  the  belief  in  God  has 
its  grounds  in  reason.  We  have  seen  that  it  arises  spontaneously 
in  experience  as  a  primitive  belief ;  that  God  is  revealed  both  in 
nature  and  in  man ;  that  the  belief  in  his  existence  is  grounded 
in  every  part  of  the  rational  constitution  of  man ;  that  it  is  a 
practical  need,  and  is  confirmed  by  the  whole  history  of  man 
that  it  is  a  necessary  idea  of  reason,  without  which  it  cannot  solve- 
its  necessary  problems.  A  belief  thus  grounded  is  not  to  be  rooted 
up  by  the  mere  assertion  that  it  is  anthropomorphic,  especially 
since  the  assertion,  if  true,  is  equally  fatal  to  all  knowledge.  No 
doctrine  or  belief  can  be  invalidated  merely  by  the  objection  that 
it  is  anthropomorphic  ;  that  is,  that  man’s  knowledge  implies 
truths  and  laws,  ideals  and  worthy  ends,  which  are  universal ; 
which,  therefore,  are  principles  and  laws,  ideals  and  worthy  ends, 
of  the  Reason  that  pervades  and  regulates  the  universe.  Wlier- 

1  John  Fiske,  Unseen  World,  p.  4. 


440 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


ever  and  whatever  in  his  immortal  existence  man  may  be,  these 
principles  and  laws,  these  ideals  and  ends  of  reason,  will  illumi¬ 
nate  him.  They  are  the  light  which  lighteth  every  man. 

“  On  a  far  shore  my  land  swam  from  my  sight; 

But  1  could  see  familiar  native  stars; 

My  home  was  shut  from  me  by  ocean  bars, 

Yet  home  hung  there  above  me  in  the  nisdit. 

Unchanged  fell  down  on  me  Orion’s  light; 

As  always  V  enus  rose  and  fiery  Mars ; 

My  own  the  Pleiads  yet  :  and  without  jars 
In  wonted  tones  sang  all  the  heavenly  height. 

So  when  in  death  from  underneath  my  feet 
Rolls  the  round  world,  I  then  shall  see  the  sky 
Of  God’s  truths  burning  yet  familiarly; 

My  native  constellations  I  shall  greet. 

I  lose  the  outer,  not  the  inner,  eye, 

The  landscape,  not  the  soul’s  stars,  when  I  die.” 


PART  IV 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  CHRIST  AS  THE 

MAN  FROM  SIN. 


REDEEMER  OF 


“When  I  come  to  consider  his  life,  his  works,  his  teaching,  the  marvelous  mingling  in 
him  of  grandeur  and  simplicity,  of  sweetness  and  force,  that  incomprehensible  perfection 
which  never  for  a  moment  fails,  .  .  .  when  I  contemplate  this  grand  marvel,  which  the 
world  has  seen  only  once  and  which  has  renewed  the  world,  I  do  not  ask  myself  if  Christ 
was  Divine;  I  should  be  rather  tempted  to  ask  myself  if  he  were  human.”  —  Lamennais, 
IJssai  sur  V  Indifference,  tom.  iv.  p.  449. 

“  The  mightiest  heart  that  ever  beat,  stirred  by  the  Spirit  of  God,  how  it  wrought  in  his 
bosom.  What  words  of  rebuke,  of  comfort,  counsel,  promise,  hope,  did  he  pour  out;  words 
that  stir  the  soul  as  summer  dews  call  up  the  faint  and  sickly  grass.  What  profound  in¬ 
struction  in  his  proverbs  and  discourses  ;  what  wisdom  in  his  homely  sayings,  so  rich  with 
Jewish  life;  what  deep  divinity  of  soul  in  his  prayers,  his  action,  sympathy,  resignation. 

.  .  .  Rarely,  almost  never,  do  we  see  the  vast  divinity  within  that  soul,  which,  new  though 
it  was  in  the  flesh,  at  one  step  goes  before  the  world  whole  thousands  of  years;  judges  the 
race  ;  decides  for  us  questions  we  dare  not  agitate  as  yet,  and  breathes  the  very  breath  of 
heavenly  love.”  —  Theodore  Parker,  Discourse  of  Religion,  p.  294  f. 

“It  is  of  no  use  to  say  that  Christ  as  exhibited  in  the  gospels  is  not  historical.  .  .  .  Who 
among  his  followers  or  among  their  proselytes  was  capable  of  inventing  the  sayings  ascribed 
to  Jesus  or  of  imagining  the  life  and  character  revealed  in  the  gospels?”  — J.  S.  Mill, 
Essays  on  Religion ,  pp.  253,  254. 

“  The  more  strongly  negative  criticism  asserts  its  position  as  to  the  person  of  Jesus,  the 
more  unaccountable  are  his  teachings  and  the  results  of  his  work.” — Edersheim,  Life  of 
Jesus ,  vol.  i.  p.  639. 

“To  deny  that  Christianity  in  its  various  forms  has  been  and  still  is  one  of  the  greatest 
powers  in  the  world,  or  to  deny  that  its  leading  doctrines  have  in  fact  been  associated  in 
many  ways  with  all  that  we  commonly  recognize  as  virtue,  is  like  denying  the  agency  of 
the  sun  in  the  physical  world.”  — Mr.  Justice  Stephen,  Nineteenth  Cent.,  June,  1884,  p.  914. 

“  God’s  word  is  an  anvil  which  has  worn  out  many  a  hammer.”  —  Beza. 

The  Christian  religion  “is  an  ultimate  whereto  humanity  can  and  must  attain.  .  .  .  And 
when  it  is  once  attained  mankind  cannot  go  back.  And  it  ought  to  be  said,  that  the  Chris¬ 
tian  religion,  having  appeared,  cannot  disappear  again ;  since  it  has  embodied  itself  in  its 
divine  form,  it  cannot  come  to  dissolution.”  —  Goethe,  Wilhelm  Meister,  Wanderjahre,  bk. 
li.  chap.  i. 

“  Then  souls  of  men  were  shaken  with  emotions  new  and  strange, 

And  creeds  and  thoughts  were  tossing  in  an  agony  of  change. 

The  world,  that  had  grown  weary  of  its  pleasures  and  its  gains, 

Felt  a  tide  of  youth  and  rapture  rush  through  its  wasted  veins; 

And  life  it  never  knew  before  was  stirring  to  its  core 

The  proud  and  puissant  empire  that  was  ‘  Pagan  Rome  ’  no  more. 


442 


THE  SELF-RE YELATION  OF  GOD. 


The  seed  that  was  so  small  had  grown  a  tree  that  flourished  grand, 

The  leaven  in  the  woman’s  cake  had  leavened  all  the  land. 

Where  silver  Jordan  runneth  from  the  Lake  of  Galilee, 

A  narrow  kingdom  lies  between  the  mountains  and  the  sea; 

From  its  hill-sides  red  with  vineyards,  the  gentle  Syrian  wind 
Bore  the  only  voice  that  answered  to  the  sobbing  of  mankind. 

To  the  cottage  of  the  fisher,  to  the  poor  man’s  mean  abode, 

The  ‘  Desire  of  Nations  ’  came,  the  Incarnate  Son  of  God. 

The  sign  that  was  a  sign  of  shame  to  pagan  and  to  Jew, 

Had  become  an  image  glorious,  that  all  men  flocked  unto; 

The  martyr  at  the  stake  for  this  esteemed  the  world  but  loss, 

The  emperor  victorious  won  his  battles  in  the  Cross.” 

Mrs.  Cecil  Frances  Alexander. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 


ESSENTIAL  CHARACTERISTICS  OF  GOD’S  REVELATION  OF 
HIMSELF  IN  REDEMPTION  THROUGH  CHRIST. 

The  presentation  of  the  “  Evidences  of  Christianity  ”  is  not 
included  in  the  plan  of  this  book.  I  propose  to  consider  only 
what  is  distinctive  and  essential  in  the  revelation  of  God  in 
Christ ;  the  essential  character  and  the  possibility  of  the  miracu¬ 
lous  in  the  redemptive  action  ;  and  the  unity  and  continuity  of 
God's  revelation  of  himself  culminating  in  Christ.  The  coming 
of  Christ  is  the  epoch  in  the  continuous  revelation  in  which  re¬ 
deemed  humanity  is  lifted  to  the  highest  plane  of  its  earthly 
development  in  the  kingdom  of  Christ,  and  is  to  continue  thereon 
under  the  dispensation  of  the  Spirit  till  the  epoch,  still  in  the 
future,  when  the  natural  life  of  mankind  on  earth  will  end,  re¬ 
deemed  humanity  will  be  lifted  to  a  higher  plane  and  the  king¬ 
dom  of  Christ  will  be  perpetuated  in  the  heavenly  glory.1 

i  There  are  three  principal  lines  of  the  Christian  Evidence. 

I.  The  evidence  of  historical  documents  and  tradition. 

II.  From  the  biblical  history  in  itself  and  in  its  vital  connection  with  the  his¬ 
tory  of  mankind.  It  admits  of  no  reasonable  explanation,  except  as  recording 
God’s  revelation  of  himself  in  historical  action  among  men,  redeeming  them 
from  sin  and  establishing  his  reign  of  righteousness  on  earth.  This  evidence 
is  found  in  three  distinct  lines:  In  the  history  of  Israel  before  Christ  and  since  ; 
in  the  life  of  Jesus;  in  the  rise  of  the  kingdom  of  Christ  on  earth  and  its  prog¬ 
ress  through  the  ages. 

III.  The  philosophical  argument  :  Christianity,  as  history,  doctrine  and  life, 
is  in  harmony  with  the  fundamental  principles  and  ideals  of  reason.  It  is  ac¬ 
cordant  with  its  fundamental  truths  and  laws,  and  fitted  to  realize  the  perfec¬ 
tion  and  wellbeing  of  man ;  thus  it  satisfies  the  demands  of  reason.  It  takes 
up  into  itself  the  spiritual  truth  and  motives  in  other  religions,  harmonizes  them 
with  the  higher  revelation  in  Christ,  thus  meets  all  the  spiritual  needs  of  man 
and  proves  itself  to  be  the  absolute  and  universal  religion.  It  reveals  the  true 
significance  and  highest  possibilities  of  human  life,  the  true  law  and  goal  of 
human  progress,  and  the  motives  and  influences  for  its  realization  in  God’s 
love  in  Christ  redeeming  man  from  sin  by  the  power  of  the  divine  Spirit,  and 
establishing  on  earth  his  kingdom  of  righteousness  and  peace.  Thus  it  is  the 
only  basis  for  a  true  philosophy  of  human  history ;  for  that  philosophy  must 
recognize  as  fundamental  the  fact  of  human  sin  and  the  necessity  of  redemp¬ 
tion  from  it  in  order  to  the  progressive  development  of  man  to  his  true  perfec¬ 
tion  and  wellbeing. 


444 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


God’s  revelation  of  himself  in  Christ  as  the  Redeemer  of  men 
from  sin  and  condemnation  as  recorded  in  the  Bible  is  the  dis¬ 
tinctive  and  essential  fact  of  Christianity  and  the  centre  of  all 
distinctively  Christian  doctrine.  I  propose  to  consider  in  this 
chapter  what  this  revelation  of  God  in  redemption  is,  and  thus  to 
define  Christianity  by  its  distinctive  and  essential  characteristics. 

By  Redemption  I  mean  all  which  God  does  to  deliver  man 
from  sin  and  condemnation  and  to  bring  him  back  to  harmony 
with  himself  in  the  life  of  faith  and  love.  It  includes  the  whole 
action  of  God  in  Christ  reconciling  the  world  unto  himself.  It 
includes  also  God’s  action  in  human  history  preparing  man  for 
Christ’s  coming ;  it  includes  the  descent  of  the  Holy  Spirit  after 
his  ascension,  and  the  subsequent  development  of  the  kingdom  of 
Christ  under  the  dispensation  of  the  Spirit  till  the  close  of  the 
history  of  the  human  race  in  its  natural  life  on  earth ;  and  it  in¬ 
cludes  the  final  consummation  of  the  kingdom  beyond  man’s 
earthly  life  in  the  blessedness  of  heaven. 

I.  God’s  action  in  redemption  is  historical. 

That  it  is  historical  is  involved  in  the  idea  of  redemption,  which 
is  God’s  action  on  and  within  men,  and  therefore  must  be  in  the 
courses  of  human  history.  It  is  God’s  action  issuing  in  historical 
results ;  it  influences  men  to  turn  from  sin  to  God,  renovates 
them  to  new  spiritual  life,  establishes  and  perpetuates  among 
them  a  kingdom  of  righteousness  and  good-will,  transforms  soci¬ 
ety  into  the  kingdom  of  God.  It  reveals  its  progress  in  history 
by  its  effects,  like  a  hidden  brook,  which  by  the  livelier  green 
betrays  the  secret  of  its  winding  course. 

Christ  is  an  historical  personage.  His  life,  teaching  and  work, 
his  death  and  resurrection  are  accepted  by  Christians  as  histor¬ 
ical  facts.  God  was  in  Christ  reconciling  the  world  to  himself. 
It  is  also  the  conception  of  Christianity  that  the  descent  of  the 
Spirit  on  the  day  of  Pentecost  was  an  historical  fact ;  that  ever 
since  then  the  Spirit  of  God  has  been  acting  on  men  and  in  the 
courses  of  human  history  building  up  the  kingdom  of  Christ  on 
earth,  and  will  continue  so  to  act  until  the  final  consummation  of 
man’s  earthly  history.  Nor  does  the  historical  action  of  God  in 
redemption  begin  with  Christ’s  earthly  life.  The  biblical  repre¬ 
sentation  is  that  when  man  first  sinned  he  made  no  movement  to 
return,  and  had  no  disposition  to  do  so.  Separated  from  God  by 
his  iniquity  he  loved  the  distance  well.  But  God  in  his  love 
would  have  him  return  to  his  favor.  On  the  very  day  of  his  first 
sin  God  sought  the  sinner  fleeing  and  hiding  from  his  maker, 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  CHRIST. 


445 


called  him  to  himself,  and  while  condemning  his  sin,  received  him 
again  as  a  worshiper.  This  was  the  beginning  of  redemption. 
And  the  Old  Testament  goes  on  to  relate  that  God  continued  to 
reveal  himself  among  men  as  gracious  to  all  who  returned  to  him  ; 
he  accepted  their  worship,  declared  to  them  his  law,  taught  them 
by  his  prophets ;  he  revealed  himself  to  Israel  as  their  covenant 
God  ;  he  perpetuated  his  kingdom  and  educated  the  people  in 
the  hope  of  the  Messiah.  Thus  the  whole  history  recorded  in  the 
Old  Testament  looked  forward  to  Christ. 

Therefore  “  Christianity,  being  essentially  redemption,  is  nec¬ 
essarily  historical.  It  is  the  promised  Christ  of  the  Old  Testa¬ 
ment,  the  living,  suffering,  dying,  risen  Christ  of  the  New  Testa¬ 
ment,  the  Christ  reigning  and  life-giving  in  the  dispensation  of 
the  Spirit.  Christianity  therefore  is  not  primarily  doctrine  but 
history  ;  not  philosophy  or  ethics  but  the  historical  manifestation 
of  God  in  his  love  redeeming  man  from  sin.  It  is  history  in  the 
past,  life-giving  energy  in  the  present,  promise  for  the  future.’/^ 

II.  God’s  action  in  redemption  involves  the  miraculous.  Rothe 
says  :  “  Miracles  and  prophecy  are  not  adjuncts  appended  from 
without  to  a  revelation  in  itself  independent  of  them,  but  are  con¬ 
stitutive  elements  of  the  revelation  itself.”  2 

The  possibility  of  miracles  is  involved  in  the  idea  of  redemp¬ 
tion.  Redemption  implies  such  presence  and  action  of  God  in 
the  universe,  such  access  of  God  to  man,  such  intimacy  of  man’s 
communion  with  him,  such  close  relations  of  the  spiritual  system 
to  the  natural,  as  make  miracles  possible  and  reasonable ;  as  in 
fact  make  them,  when  rightly  apprehended,  to  cease  to  be  mira¬ 
cles  in  the  sense  often  attached  to  them,  and  bring  them  into 
strict  accord  with  the  constitution  and  law  of  the  universe. 

Miracles,  in  their  relation  to  redemption,  may  be  distinguished 
as  essential  and  incidental. 

The  acts  which  are  essential  and  fundamental  in  redemption 
are  miraculous.  Such  are  the  person  and  life  of  Christ,  his  res¬ 
urrection  and  ascension,  the  whole  history  of  God  in  Christ  rec¬ 
onciling  the  world  unto  himself.  And  the  redemptive  action  of 
God  in  its  preparatory  stage  recorded  in  the  Old  Testament  in¬ 
volves  the  miraculous.  In  all  that  period  God  was  related  to  his 
people  by  covenant,  in  which  he  promised  his  favor  and  blessing 
on  condition  of  their  trust  in  him  and  their  fidelity  to  him  in  obe- 

1  The  Kingdom  of  Christ  on  Earth,  by  Samuel  Harris,  p.  66.  See  Lectures 
iii.  and  iv. 

2  Studien  und  Kritiken,  1858,  p.  23. 


446 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


dience  to  the  law.  We  have  the  record  of  the  making  of  thi& 
covenant  with  Abraham,  and  of  its  renewal  at  successive  epochs 
in  their  history.  They  were  instructed  by  his  prophets,  who  com¬ 
municated  to  them  his  commands,  his  warnings  and  his  prom¬ 
ises.  It  was  by  this  covenant  of  God  with  them  that  Israel  was 
distinguished  from  other  peoples.  Thus  the  history  of  redemp¬ 
tion  through  this  period  of  preparation  for  Christ’s  coming  was 
marked  by  both  miracle  and  prophecy. 

The  miraculous,  therefore,  belongs  to  the  essence  of  redemp¬ 
tion,  and  consequently  to  the  essence  of  Christianity.  The  at¬ 
tempt  to  retain  Christianity  after  eliminating  the  miraculous  is 
futile.  Such  an  elimination  changes  the  conception  of  Christian¬ 
ity  from  historical  redemption  through  Christ  to  speculative  phi¬ 
losophy  and  ethics.  The  residuum  of  speculative  and  ethical  doc¬ 
trine,  if  it  can  be  called  a  system  of  religious  thought,  is  not 
Christianity ;  and  those  who  hold  it,  however  wise  and  good,  at 
least  are  not  Christians  in  amy  true  significance  of  the  name. 

Besides  those  miracles  which  were  constitutive  and  essential  in 
redemption  are  others  which  were  incidental ;  as  the  miracles  of 
healing. 

Thom  as  Aquinas  distinguishes  the  first  class  as  miracles  that 
are  objects  of  our  faith;  the  second  as  miracles  which  are  for  the 
confirmation  of  our  faith.  All  the  miracles  of  Christ  and  the 
apostles  were  wrought  in  carrying  on  the  work  of  redemption  and 
founding  and  extending  Christ’s  kingdom  on  the  earth. 

Miracles  have  a  threefold  significance.  They  are  acts  of  re¬ 
demption,  either  constitutive  and  essential,  or  incidental.  They 
are  signs  or  evidences ;  signs  of  the  spiritual  and  supernatural 
penetrating  the  natural ;  of  the  presence  of  the  kingdom  of  God 
on  earth  and  of  its  agencies  and  influences  energizing  among 
men ;  of  the  riches  of  that  kingdom  opened  in  works  of  benefi¬ 
cence  ;  of  the  presence  and  power  of  God’s  redeeming  grace  em¬ 
powering  and  authorizing  the  worker  of  the  miracle ;  and  of  the 
glory  and  coming  exaltation  of  Christ  and  the  prevalence  of  his 
kingdom.  And,  lastly,  as  wonders,  they  arrest  attention,  awaken 
the  spiritual  capacities,  arouse  the  conscience,  enforce  instruction, 
and  thus  are  auxiliary  to  the  introduction  of  the  gospel  into  the 
unbelieving  world. 

III.  God’s  redemptive  action  centring  in  Christ  constitutes  a 
revelation.  In  Christ  and  in  God's  redemptive  action  centring 
in  him  as  recorded  in  the  Bible,  God  reveals  himself  as  the  Re¬ 
deemer  of  men  from  sin.  The  redemptive  action  is  the  revela¬ 
tion 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  CHRIST. 


447 


It  is  a  revelation  of  God  himself  by  what  he  does,  as  distin¬ 
guished  from  a  revelation  of  ready-made  doctrines  and  precepts 
communicated  in  words. 

It  was  shown  in  a  former  chapter  that  a  man  cannot  know  any 
object  merely  by  his  own  subjective  activity.  The  object  must 
first  act  in  some  way  on  him  and  so  reveal  itself,  and  then  the 
mind  reacts  on  the  object,  perceiving  and  apprehending  it.  The 
same  is  true  of  God.  Man  cannot  know  God  by  dint  of  mere 
subjective  thinking.  There  must  be  some  action  of  God  in  which 
he  comes  out  from  the  secrecy  of  his  being  and  reveals  himself. 
It  is  essential  in  the  idea  of  revelation  that  it  must  be  made 
primarily  in  what  God  does.  Accordingly  God’s  action  in  re¬ 
demption  constitutes  his  revelation  of  himself  as  redeemer.  It 
is  a  revelation  of  himself  made  in  actually  redeeming  men  from 
condemnation  and  sin,  not  a  revelation  of  truth  communicated 
in  words. 

Here  is  a  double  contrast.  The  object  revealed  is  not  prima¬ 
rily  formulated  truth  or  doctrine  or  precept ;  it  is  not  even  reli¬ 
gion  ;  it  is  God  himself,  the  Redeemer  of  men.  And  the  revelation 
is  made  not  primarily  by  the  medium  of  words  and  sentences  but 
by  deeds.  It  is  not  an  absent  father  writing  to  his  children  to 
instruct  them  as  to  the  nature  of  the  family  and  the  grounds  of 
filial  duty  and  informing  them  what  he  would  have  them  do.  It 
is  rather  a  father  living  among  his  children  revealing  himself  in 
all  which  he  does  for  and  with  them.  God  reveals  himself  in 
redemption  as  the  sun  reveals  itself  by  shining  to  all  that  see  its 
light  and  feel  its  heat.  Very  different  would  the  revelation  of 
the  sun  be  by  a  message  to  men  in  total  darkness,  teaching  them 
by  words  the  scientific  theory  of  light. 

Accordingly  the  word  in  which  God  communicates  his  fullest 
revelation  is  the  living  word  made  flesh  in  Christ ;  God  in  Christ 
reconciling  the  world  unto  himself.  “  No  man  hath  seen  God  at 
any  time  ;  the  only  begotten  Son,  which  is  in  the  bosom  of  the 
Father,  he  hath  declared  him.”  The  prophet  Malachi,  in  mes¬ 
sianic  vision,  sees  this  revelation  as  the  rising  of  the  sun  :  “  Unto 
you  that  fear  my  name  shall  the  Sun  of  Righteousness  arise  with 
healing  in  his  wings.”  And  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  it  is 
said  of  him,  under  the  same  likeness  to  the  sun,  that  he  is  the 
effulgence  or  outshining  of  God’s  glory  and  the  very  image  of  his 
substance.  But  God  reveals  himself  in  Christ  by  what  he  is  and 
does  rather  than  by  what  he  says.  The  author  of  the  Epistle  to 
the  Hebrews  begins  by  declaring  that  God  has  revealed  himself 


448 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


in  his  Son,  and  is  occupied  throughout  the  epistle  expressly  in 
explaining  what  the  revelation  is.  But  in  the  whole  letter  he 
does  not  quote  a  single  saying  of  Christ,  but  unfolds  the  signifi¬ 
cance  of  the  revelation  made  in  what  he  is  and  does.  The  other 
epistles  in  the  New  Testament  are  full  of  Christ ;  they  profess 
to  know  nothing  but  Jesus  Christ  and  him  crucified.  Yet  in 
them  all  there  is  scarcely  a  quotation  of  any  sentence  which  he 
uttered.  Christ  when  on  earth  made  himself  the  principal  ob¬ 
ject  of  his  own  teaching.  He  proclaimed  himself  as  the  pre¬ 
dicted  Messiah  ;  he  explained  the  true  nature  of  his  kingdom  and 
the  character  of  those  who  should  be  admitted  to  it.  But  he  said 
comparatively  little  of  his  death.  How  could  he  ?  His  death 
was  itself  the  revelation  ;  it  was  itself  the  sacrifice  of  atonement. 
Necessarily  he  must  let  the  fact  reveal  its  significance.  He  did 
not  come  to  preach  redemption  but  to  redeem.  He  did  not  come 
to  preach  the  gospel,  but  to  give  us  a  gospel  to  be  preached  ;  to 
do  the  great  work  of  redemption  which  reveals  God’s  grace  to 
sinners,  the  glad  tidings  of  which  are  the  gospel.  The  signifi¬ 
cance  of  his  revelation  of  God  does  not  consist  primarily  in  “  the 
words  of  the  Master,”  as  rationalists  like  to  express  it,  but  in 
what  he  is  and  does,  the  Immanuel,  the  God  with  us. 

God's  action  centring  in  Christ  and  redeeming  man  from  sin 
is,  both  as  to  that  which  is  revealed  and  the  method  of  the  rev¬ 
elation,  peculiar  to  itself,  distinct  from  all  other  revelations,  and 
transcends  them  all. 

The  old  distinction  of  natural  and  revealed  religion  and  na¬ 
tural  and  revealed  theology  is  no  longer  available.  All  religion 
and  all  knowledge  of  God  imply  some  action  of  God  revealing 
himself  to  men.  In  this  sense  God  reveals  himself  to  all  men. 
This  Paul  affirms  in  the  first  and  second  chapters  of  the  Epistle 
to  the  Romans,  and  in  his  speeches  at  Athens  and  at  Lystra. 
This  universal  revelation  has  been  already  set  forth.  God  re¬ 
veals  himself  as  the  absolute  Being  in  the  necessary  principles 
and  laws  of  thought  which  underlie  all  scientific  knowledge  and 
make  such  knowledge  possible.  In  the  universe  he  reveals  him¬ 
self  as  its  first  Cause  and  as  the  Power  that  maintains  it  and  acts 
in  it.  In  the  constitution  and  course  of  nature  and  in  the  con¬ 
stitution  and  history  of  man  he  reveals  himself  as  the  absolute 
Reason,  the  personal  God.  And  in  man’s  rational  and  moral  con¬ 
stitution  and  freedom  God  reveals  himself  as  the  righteous  moral 
lawgiver  and  judge  ;  and  reveals  man  to  himself  not  only  as  a 
rational  free  agent  but  also  as  a  sinner  against  God  in  the  trans- 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  CHRIST. 


449 


gression  of  his  righteous  law.  Christianity  then  is  not  distin¬ 
guished  from  the  so  called  natural  religion  and  theology  by  the 
fact  of  revelation,  but  by  the  fact  of  an  additional  revelation  pe¬ 
culiar  to  itself. 

In  the  first  place,  it  is  distinguished  by  a  peculiar  line  of  his¬ 
torical  action  in  which  God  reveals  himself  as  the  redeemer  of 
men  from  sin.  It  is  God  in  Christ  reconciling  the  world  unto 
himself.  From  the  beginning  of  history  we  trace  a  line  of  action 
in  which  God  reveals  himself  as  gracious  to  sinners.  This  action 
looks  forward  to  Christ  and  culminates  in  him.  From  the  God 
in  Christ  proceeds  the  divine  Spirit.  He  illuminates  the  minds 
of  men,  darkened  with  sin,  with  the  knowledge  of  God  revealed 
in  Christ  as  the  Redeemer  ;  he  bears  the  influences  and  energies 
of  God’s  redeeming  grace  through  all  the  world  and  perpetuates 
them  through  the  earthly  history  of  mankind  ;  thus  he  from  age 
to  age  is  gathering  out  of  the  world  a  community  of  the  re¬ 
deemed,  a  kingdom  of  Christ,  a  kingdom  of  righteousness  and 
peace  and  joy  in  the  Holy  Spirit,  comprising  all  who  under  the 
influence  of  God’s  grace  are  willing  to  turn  from  sin  and  to  trust 
and  serve  God  in  a  new  and  spiritual  life. 

In  the  second  place,  God’s  revelation  of  himself  in  Christ  is 
distinguished  by  the  peculiar  matter  of  the  revelation.  He  re¬ 
veals  himself  as  the  Redeemer  of  men  from  sin.  When  man  by 
sin  has  sundered  the  bonds  of  his  union  with  God  in  filial  trust 
and  service,  the  questions  arise,  can  he  be  received  again  to  the 
favor  of  God  and  restored  to  his  normal  union  with  him  ;  and  if 
God  can  receive  him,  can  the  sinner  be  influenced  of  his  own  free 
will  to  return.  To  these  questions  no  answer  is  given  in  the  rev¬ 
elation  of  God  in  the  constitution  and  course  of  nature,  or  in  the 
constitution  of  man,  or  in  his  history  aside  from  the  history  of 
redemption  in  Christ.  The  answer  from  these  sources,  if  any, 
would  rather  seem  to  be  that  sin,  as  man’s  wilful  rupturing  of 
his  normal  union  with  God,  as  his  setting  up  for  himself  in  self- 
sufficiency  and  repudiation  of  his  condition  as  a  creature,  as  a 
contradicting  of  the  universal  reason  and  of  the  fundamental  con¬ 
stitution  of  the  universe,  must  make  it  forever  impossible  for  man 
to  regain  his  normal  union  with  God  and  so  to  realize  his  true 
perfection  and  wellbeing.  Plainly  it  is  impossible  unless  God 
first  by  his  own  action  in  some  way  reveals  himself  gracious  and 
accessible  even  to  sinners.  It  is  in  Christ  and  only  in  him  that 
he  makes  this  revelation.  In  him  he  makes  atonement  for  sin, 

and  opens  the  way  for  the  free  return  of  every  sinful  man  who 

29 


450 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


will.  In  him  he  reveals  himself  gracious  to  sinners  with  open 
heart  ready  to  receive  them  to  his  favor,  when  they  return  to 
him.  And  this  is  the  Gospel  of  Christ,  the  glad  tidings  of  great 
joy  to  all  people.  But  this  is  not  all.  God  not  merely  waits  to 
be  gracious  to  sinners  when  they  return  to  him,  but  he  puts  forth 
positive  influence  to  arouse  and  guide  and  draw  to  himself  sin¬ 
ners  having  of  themselves  no  disposition  to  come.  While  the 
minds  of  men  are  darkened  with  sin  so  that  the  light  of  the 
eternal  wisdom  and  love  are  hidden,  God  in  Christ,  the  eternal 
Reason  which  is  the  true  light  of  every  man,  breaks  through  the 
darkening  clouds  and  shines  into  their  hearts  to  give  the  light  of 
the  knowledge  of  the  glory  of  God  in  the  face  of  Jesus  Christ. 
And  while  men  are  yet  sinners,  with  their  wills  fixed  in  the  re¬ 
nunciation  of  God,  in  their  self-sufficiency,  self-will,  self-seeking 
and  self-glorying,  while  their  desires  and  affections  are  perverted, 
their  spiritual  susceptibilities  benumbed,  and  their  fleshly  nature 
exalted  above  the  spiritual,  God  in  Christ  comes  to  them  by  the 
Spirit  with  heavenly  influences  and  energies  to  quicken  them  to 
spiritual  life,  and  to  supply  divine  guidance  and  grace  to  help  in 
time  of  need  to  every  one  willing  to  return  to  the  life  of  filial 
trust  and  loving  service  and  so  to  regain  the  privilege  and  bless¬ 
edness  of  the  sons  of  God.  And  here  again  is  the  gospel  of  Christ, 
the  glad  tidings  to  all. 

This  historical  action  of  God  in  Christ  redeeming  the  world 
from  sin  is  the  revelation  of  God  peculiar  to  Christianity  and  dis¬ 
tinctive  of  it.  It  is  distinctive  and  peculiar  both  as  to  what  it 
reveals  and  as  to  the  historical  action  in  which  the  revelation  has 
been  made.  It  is  therefore  also  distinguished  from  all  other  rev¬ 
elations  by  its  superior  fulness  and  completeness,  by  its  adapted¬ 
ness  to  all  the  spiritual  needs  of  man  and  by  its  power  of  spir¬ 
itual  renovation.  It  is  God’s  revelation  of  himself  in  its  highest 
and  consummate  form.  As  Dr.  Dorner  expresses  it,  4  The  per¬ 
fecting  of  the  self-revelation  of  God  is  nothing  other  than  the  in¬ 
carnation  of  God.”  1  This  is  the  new  revelation  which  breaks 
through  the  old  circle  of  the  natural  life,  to  make  us  by  a  birth 
of  the  Spirit  into  new  creatures  in  Christ  and  children  of  God. 
And  if  so,  then  God’s  coming  into  humanity  in  Christ  to  redeem 
man  from  condemnation  and  sin  and  to  set  up  his  reign  of  right¬ 
eousness  and  grace,  is  the  central  and  fundamental  fact  in  human 
history,  to  which  all  other  revelations  and  religions  are  subor¬ 
dinated,  on  which  all  true  theology  must  centre,  and  on  which 
1  System  of  Christian  Doctrine,  vol.  iii.  p.  141,  Trans. 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  CHRIST.  451 

the  true  significance  and  philosophy  of  all  other  history  must 
depend. 

IV.  The  Christian  revelation  includes  both  the  historical  or 
public  and  the  prophetic  or  private.  Both  are  facts,  and  there¬ 
fore  both,  in  the  broadest  meaning  of  the  word,  are  historical. 
But  the  distinction  may  be  designated  by  these  words  in  the 
lack  of  any  which  are  more  exact.  The  historical  or  public  rev¬ 
elations  are  redemptive  acts  open  to  common  observation,  as  the 
life,  works,  death  and  resurrection  of  Christ  ;  and  in  the  Old 
Testament  the  deliverance  from  Egypt  and  other  divine  inter¬ 
positions  in  the  history  of  Israel.  The  prophetic  or  private  rev¬ 
elations  are  divine  influences  revealing  God  in  the  consciousness 
of  an  individual,  so  that  he  knows  God  in  experience  and  is  able 
to  testify  to  others  of  what  he  has  thus  known  of  God.  This 
is  the  essence  of  all  prophecy.  In  this  sense  all  Christians,  as 
recipients  of  the  witness  of  the  Spirit  and  as  thus  themselves  wit¬ 
nesses  for  God,  are  prophets.  The  prophets  of  the  Bible  were 
subjects  of  a  special  divine  influence  and  inspired  to  testify  of 
what  God  had  revealed  to  them.  So  Ewald  represents  it :  “  We 
must  recognize  in  the  prophets  one  of  the  most  wonderful  pri¬ 
mal  faculties  of  the  soul,  potentially  existing  through  the  whole 
human  race,  but  revealed  in  especial  strength,  truth  and  persist¬ 
ence  in  the  history  of  Israel  only.”  “  The  spirit  of  every  true 
prophet  begins  with  beholding  the  divine  light,  and  being  ab¬ 
sorbed  into  the  mind  and  will  of  God.” 

Prophecy  is  a  knowledge  and  declaration,  not  of  future  events 
only,  but  of  God  in  any  revelation  of  himself  within  the  con¬ 
sciousness  of  an  individual.  In  Israel  the  prophets  not  only  fore¬ 
told  future  events,  but  were  revealers  of  the  truth,  character  and 
will  of  God,  and  preachers  of  righteousness.  They  u  negotiated 
between  God  and  man.”  They  stood  for  God,  his  law  and  cov¬ 
enant  against  all  wickedness,  warned  the  people  of  impending 
judgments  on  their  sins,  declared  God’s  promises,  and  strove  to 
keep  them  faithful  to  their  covenant  with  him. 

Prophecy  sustains  important  relations  to  redemption.  Pro¬ 
phetic  revelation  is  a  part  of  the  divine  action  in  redemption, 
either  essential  or  incidental.  The  revelation  of  God  in  the  con¬ 
sciousness  of  an  individual  through  the  influence  of  the  Spirit 
convincing  of  sin,  renewing,  illuminating  and  sanctifying,  giving 
peace  with  God  and  inspiring  with  courage  and  hope,  invigorating 
with  divine  energy  in  every  good  work,  is  essential  in  redeeming 
the  person  from  sin  and  restoring  him  to  his  normal  union  and 


452 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


k 


communion  with  God,  so  that  he  is  filled  with  all  the  fulness  of 
God.  Promise  of  blessing,  both  to  the  individual  and  to  the  com¬ 
munity  of  the  redeemed,  is  inseparable  from  the  revelation  of 
God’s  grace  in  redemption.  The  preaching  of  the  gospel,  the  tes¬ 
tifying  of  those  in  whom  Christ  is  revealed,  is  essential  in  the  idea 
of  redemption  as  carried  forward  among  men  through  the  agency 
of  Christians  working  together  with  God  and  finding  therein  their 
own  education  and  development,  in  fellowship  with  God,  into  the 
likeness  of  Jesus  Christ.  In  this  sense  prophecy  is  perpetual  in 
the  kingdom  of  Christ. 

Prediction,  also,  by  men  specially  inspired,  is  essential  in  the 
carrying  forward  of  redemption.  Such  is  the  messianic  prophecy 
which  pervades  the  prophecies  of  the  Old  Testament.  It  was  the 
declaration  by  inspired  men  of  the  revelation,  which  they  had 
received  in  divers  portions  and  divers  manners,  of  the  central 
idea  and  central  fact  of  redemption.  Other  predictions  of  par¬ 
ticular  events,  though  they  belong  to  the  general  course  of  re¬ 
demptive  action,  are  not  essential  but  incidental.  Thus  the  rev¬ 
elation  of  God  in  his  redemptive  action  is  both  historical  and 
prophetic,  and  the  latter  is  always  subordinate  to  the  former. 
So  a  great  general  reveals  the  plan  of  his  campaign  in  actually 
carrying  it  through,  and  therein  also  reveals  himself  as  a  great 
military  genius.  But  in  the  execution  of  his  plan  he  must  take 
subordinate  commanders  into  his  confidence,  disclose  to  them  some 
general  idea  of  his  plan,  and  from  step  to  step  its  details  in  vari¬ 
ous  parts  and  in  various  ways.  And  these  private  revelations  are 
acts  essential  or  incidental  to  the  action  of  the  campaign. 

Prediction  in  its  fulfilment  has  also  evidential  value.  The  ful¬ 
filment  in  Jesus  Christ  of  the  messianic  prophecy  is  evidence 
that  in  him  God  is  redeeming  the  world.  The  history  unfolds 
in  agreement  with  the  prophetic  plan.  The  Old  Testament  con¬ 
tains  the  New  as  the  bud  contains  the  flower.  In  Christ  the  bud 
of  prophecy  opens  into  the  flower  of  history.  Redemption  moves 
on  in  an  atmosphere  of  promise,  and  prediction  of  greater  things 
to  come  is  but  the  vocalization  of  its  vital  breath.  The  fact  that 
the  spirit  of  promise  and  of  prophecy  pervades  the  Hebrew  re¬ 
ligion,  unfolding  into  realization  in  Christianity  and  thence  into 
larger  promise,  is  evidence  that  this  religion  is  from  God.  In  the 
religions  of  Egypt,  India,  Persia,  China,  there  is  no  prophecy  and 
no  promise.  It  is  a  characteristic  of  an  ethnic  religion  that  it 
assumes  its  own  completeness,  and  is  bound  within  its  own  lim¬ 
its.  It  admits  no  outlook  to  a  future  when  it  will  burst  its  cere- 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  CHRIST. 


453 


ments,  rise  to  a  new  life  and  transcend  itself.  And  it  has  no 
consciousness  of  a  destiny  and  vital  power  to  renovate  society 
and  to  quicken  and  guide  its  progress  to  a  future  always  better 
than  the  past.  Such  development  and  progress  are  precluded  by 
the  essence  of  these  religions.  Pantheism,  in  making  God  every¬ 
thing,  makes  him  nothing.  It  recognizes  only  an  unconscious 
indeterminate  forever  evolving  into  the  universe  and  resolving 
back  into  the  infinite.  The  movement  is  not  forward  and  pro¬ 
gressive,  but  ever  in  a  circle.  There  is  no  consciousness,  no  intel¬ 
ligence,  no  freedom,  no  love,  no  wisdom.  The  generations  of  men 
are  but  the  indeterminate,  the  unconscious  evolved,  all  on  the 
same  level,  all  abreast  rather  than  in  movement  forward.  Qpdj§ 
chained  by  fate,  man  by  caste.  In  such  a  system  what  messianic 
iope  can  bud  and  blossom  ?  What  expectation  and  prophecy  of 
a  kingdom  of  God  growing  like  the  mustard-seed  can  spring  up  ? 
But  the  very  genius  of  the  Hebrew  religion  was  its  outlook  to 
the  future.  Its  very  life  was  in  the  expectation  of  a  development 
into  something  transcending  itself.  It  carried  ever  in  its  bosom 
the  primal  promise,  “  In  thy  seed  shall  all  the  nations  of  the  earth 
be  blessed.”  This  the  prophets  unfolded  with  ever  increasing 
clearness  and  fulness,  until  the  expectation  of  its  fulfilment  satu¬ 
rated  the  life  of  the  people  and  became  what  has  been  called  The 
Hebrew  Utopia.  But  this  messianic  expectation  was  realized  in 
Christ,  and  from  him  the  religion  of  promise  and  hope,  of  en¬ 
thusiasm  for  humanity,  of  ever  widening  and  deepening  progress, 
has  been  prevailing  in  the  world.  And  this  progress  is  accordant 
with  the  essence  of  the  religion.  Here  is  the  personal  God  acting 
in  consciousness  and  freedom.  He  is  the  eternal  Reason ;  he  is 
the  almighty  Power  acting  freely  in  eternal  harmony  with  the 
Reason.  Here  are  wisdom  and  love,  here  is  God  with  men,  gra¬ 
cious  even  to  the  sinful  when  they  return  to  him  ;  here  is  God 
redeeming  men  from  sin.  Here  that  which  has  been  ceases  to 
be  the  measure  of  that  which  shall  be ;  the  miracle  of  free  will 
bursts  forth  in  the  world  and  men  are  in  the  image  of  God,  know 
him  and  can  trust  and  serve  him.  Then  a  kingdom  of  God,  a 
reign  of  righteousness  and  peace,  appears  on  the  earth  ;  the  old 
gives  place  to  the  better  and  more  vigorous  new  ;  old  institutions 
become  effete  and  pass  away ;  and  in  the  face  of  all  hindrances 
and  delays,  the  believer  in  Christ  believes  that  the  ancient  proph¬ 
ecy  will  surely  be  fulfilled,  that  “  the  earth  shall  be  full  of  the 
knowledge  of  the  Lord,  as  the  waters  cover  the  sea.” 

Prediction  is  also  related  to  redemption  as  giving  instruction 


454 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


and  motive,  as  inspiring  courage  and  enthusiasm  and  directing 
endeavor.  The  Christian  works  for  the  welfare  of  men  in  ad¬ 
vancing  the  kingdom  of  Christ,  in  the  inspiration  of  expected 
victory  ;  he  knows  that  it  is  “  a  kingdom  which  cannot  be 

moved.” 

V.  It  follows  that  God’s  revelation  of  himself  is  through  a  hu¬ 
man  medium. 

The  reception  of  it  must  be  through  the  medium  of  the  suscep¬ 
tibilities  and  powers  of  a  human  soul.  As  a  revelation  of  God  it 
must  be  not  only  apprehended  by  the  intellect  but  accepted  in 
the  trustfulness  of  the  heart.  There  must  be  a  human  medium 
and  the  mediation  must  be  both  intellectual  and  moral.  All  con¬ 
ception  of  revelation  poured  into  a  man  in  a  mechanical  way 
without  his  personal  and  free  participation  in  it  as  its  intelligent 
and  trustful  recipient,  is  destructive  of  its  essential  significance 
as  a  revelation.  Even  if  the  revelation  were  after  the  manner 
of  the  Arabian  Nights,  and  the  future,  the  distant,  the  unknown 
were  seen  in  a  magic  mirror,  the  seer  must  apprehend  for  him¬ 
self  what  the  mirror  reveals,  must  interpret  its  significance  in  its 
practical  relations  to  himself  and  to  persons  and  interests  within 
the  circle  of  his  previous  knowledge.  And  this  must  be  true  of 
revelation  however  made.  If  it  is  historical  and  public  the  ob¬ 
server  must  apprehend  and  interpret  the  event  with  his  own 
mental  powers,  just  as  an  astronomer  must  observe  the  heavenly 
bodies  and  their  movements,  and  by  the  intelligent  faculties  of 
his  own  mind  find  out  their  scientific  significance.  And  if  it  is  a 
prophetic  revelation  within  the  man’s  own  consciousness,  he  must 
in  like  manner  apprehend  and  interpret  its  significance.  And  he 
must  do  this,  under  the  continued  influence  of  the  Spirit,  but 
with  his  own  faculties,  in  the  light  of  his  previous  knowledge, 
and  in  view  of  the  bearing  of  the  revelation  on  existing  condi¬ 
tions  and  circumstances.  And  as  God’s  revelation  pertains  to 
the  moral  and  spiritual  in  man,  its  reception  and  interpretation 
will  depend  on  the  moral  and  spiritual  state  of  the  man.  Hence 
Christ  compares  his  word  to  seed,  the  growth  of  which  depends 
on  the  receptivity  and  condition  of  the  soil  on  which  it  falls. 
Revelation  must  find  in  man  some  soil  in  which  it  can  inhere  and 
take  root.  Otherwise  it  is  abortive.  This  distinguishes  Chris¬ 
tianity  from  heathen  religions.  In  these  the  alleged  revelations 
are  not  given  through  an  intelligent,  moral  and  personal  medium. 
The  Pythia  uttered  her  oracles  only  when  possessed  by  the  god 
and  beside  herself  in  mantic  fury.  Christianity,  on  the  contrary, 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  CHRIST.  455 

insists  that  “  the  spirits  of  the  prophets  are  subject  to  the 
prophets.” 

It  must  also  be  through  a  human  medium  that  the  revela¬ 
tion  is  communicated.  Prophecy  is  communicated  first  by  the 
prophet  who  has  received  it.  And  both  historical  revelation  and 
prophetic  are  communicated,  by  those  who  have  received  them, 
to  all  people.  The  human  spirit  enlightened  and  fired  by  the 
Spirit  of  God  is  the  only  adequate  agency  for  communicating 
God’s  revelation  of  himself  in  Christ  to  all  mankind.  Hence  our 
Saviour’s  command  is,  “  Go  ye.” 

The  action  of  God  in  redemption  and  the  revelation  of  himself 
made  thereby  as  redeemer  is  necessarily  progressive.  This  is  not 
on  account  of  any  imperfection  in  God,  but  on  account  of  the 
limitation  and  imperfection  of  man  to  whom  the  revelation  is 
made  and  by  whom  it  is  received,  communicated  and  perpetuated. 
God’s  action  in  redemption  and  the  revelation  made  by  it  go  on 
in  the  courses  of  human  history.  For  this  reason  a  large  part  of 
the  Bible  is  history  of  the  ordinary  actions  of  men  and  the  or¬ 
dinary  providence  of  God  in  human  affairs.  The  revelation  is 
the  heavenly  jewel  ;  the  human  history  is  its  necessary  setting. 
Hence  along  with  the  distinctively  redemptive  action  go  always 
the  human  agency  and  action  through  which  it  is  connected  with 
humanity.  Hence  the  revelation  is  everywhere  related  to  the 
historical  exigencies  of  the  time ;  it  bears  the  marks  of  the  age 
and  country  in  which  it  was  given,  and  even  of  the  individual 
prophet  or  apostle  who  received  it.  Paul’s  epistles  were  written 
to  meet  existing  conditions  in  the  churches  to  which  they  were 
addressed.  The  inspired  writings  are,  in  various  forms,  biog¬ 
raphy,  history,  doctrines  and  precepts,  poetry,  letters,  proverbs 
and  parables.  The  revelation  must  therefore  be  progressive. 
Facts  and  ideas  familiar  to  all  in  modern  civilization  could  not 
have  been  communicated  in  the  languages  of  ancient  time.  No 
prophet  could  have  predicted  intelligibly  at  the  court  of  David, 
king  of  Israel,  that  on  April  4,  in  the  year  of  our  Lord,  1885,  in 
a  battle  fought  that  day  with  cannon  and  rifles  in  Egypt,  a  posi¬ 
tion  was  shelled  by  the  English  at  two  o’clock  in  the  afternoon, 
and  the  news  of  this  event  was  sent  by  electric  cable  and  an¬ 
nounced  in  New  York  in  America  on  the  same  day  before  the 
clock  struck  two  in  that  city  :  that  it  was  printed  the  same  after¬ 
noon  in  the  newspapers,  and  that  one  of  these  sent  by  rail  was 
read  in  a  town  seventy  miles  from  New  York  at  seven  o’clock 
the  same  evening.  Here  is  the  necessity  that  God’s  revelation  of 


456 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


himself  must  be  progressive.  God  can  reveal  himself  no  faster 
than  is  commensurate  with  the  knowledge,  the  condition,  the  re¬ 
ceptivity  of  the  men  on  whom  he  acts  and  to  whom  and  through 
whom  he  reveals  himself.  There  must  be  a  preparatory  dispen¬ 
sation  before  Christ  comes.  The  race  must  be  educated  to 
receive  the  larger  revelation.  The  redemptive  action  must  be 
adjusted  to  the  existing  capacity  and  condition  of  men  ;  the  light 
must  be  admitted  gradually  to  the  eye  enfeebled  in  long  dark¬ 
ness  ;  a  sudden  excess  of  light  would  only  dazzle  and  blind. 
Archbishop  Whately  illustrates  this  necessary  progressiveness  of 
revelation  by  a  father  writing  letters  to  a  son  from  early  child¬ 
hood  to  full  manhood.  A  better  illustration  would  be  from  a 
father  living  with  his  son,  revealing  himself  as  father  both  by 
what  he  does  and  by  counsel  and  instruction  ;  the  son  meanwhile 
from  early  childhood  up  keeping  a  diary  or  record  both  of  his 
father’s  acts  and  of  his  counsel  and  teaching  as  received  and  un¬ 
derstood  by  him  at  the  time.  The  revelation  of  the  father  to 
the  son  as  thus  recorded  would  necessarily  be  progressive.  The 
father  would  adapt  his  conduct,  counsel  and  instruction  to  the 
unfolding  capacity  of  the  child.  The  child  would  record  them 
with  such  capacity  of  apprehension  and  expression  as  he  had  at 
the  time  and  in  their  application  to  the  current  events  and  the 
existing  circumstances.  And  yet  by  the  very  process  the  father 
is  progressively  educating  the  son  to  capacity  for  larger  and 
higher  instruction,  and  to  a  more  mature  and  complete  under¬ 
standing  of  the  father’s  plan  in  educating  him,  and  of  his  fatherly 
character  and  love. 

All  religions  claim  to  rest  on  revelation.  But  not  one  of  these 
alleged  revelations,  so  far  as  it  is  the  tradition  of  the  action  of  a 
god,  declares  any  unity  of  plan  and  continuity  of  beneficent  ac¬ 
tion  on  the  part  of  the  god,  aiming  at  the  spiritual  renovation  of 
human  character  and  the  reconciliation  of  man  with  God.  The 
Christian  revelation,  on  the  contrary,  is  the  manifestation  of  God 
bringing  a  divine  life  into  the  world,  the  coming  of  a  divine 
energy  into  human  history  progressively  revealing  God  as  the  re¬ 
deemer  of  men  from  sin,  and  issuing  in  the  coming  of  Christ,  in 
whom  God  is  reconciling  the  world  to  himself,  and  the  kingdom 
of  righteousness,  peace  and  joy  in  the  Holy  Spirit  is  securely 
founded  and  begins  to  pervade  the  world. 

Revelation  is  not  an  end  in  itself.  God  makes  the  revelation 
by  his  gracious  action  redeeming  men  from  sin  ;  the  revelation  is 
not  an  end  in  itself  but  is  subordinate  to  the  redemption  of  men 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  CHRIST. 


457 


from  sin,  and  to  the  advancement  of  the  kingdom  of  God,  which 
in  its  progressive  realization  is  the  consummation  of  all  good  for 
mankind.  What  is  revealed  is  God  himself./  God  must  be  what 
he  is  before  he  can  reveal  himself  as  he  is.  His  action  in  re¬ 
demption  is  his  revelation  to  man  of  what  he  is.  His  eternal 
ethical  character  is  Love  including  both  righteousness  and  good¬ 
will.  He  redeems  men  from  sin  because  redemption  is  the  spon¬ 
taneous  and  free  acting  out  among  and  upon  sinful  men  of  his 
eternal  ethical  character.  In  this  redemptive  action  he  reveals 
himself  as  eternal  Love.  The  revelation  is  incidental  to  his  re¬ 
demptive  action  ;  for  if  he  acts  towards  men  at  all  he  will  act 
out  his  eternal  ethical  character  ;  and  in  acting  it  out  he  reveals 
himself  as  eternal  Love.  And  the  revelation  is  subordinate  to 
the  design  of  redemption  ;  for  the  revelation  of  his  love  is  made 
in  his  redemptive  action  in  order  to  draw  men  away  from  their 
sin  and  misery  to  reconciliation  with  himself. 

VI.  The  Bible  is  the  inspired  record  of  God’s  action  centring 
in  Christ,  redeeming  man  from  sin  and  establishing  his  kingdom 
of  righteousness  and  peace  and  joy  in  the  Holy  Spirit.  It  is  not 
itself  the  revelation,  but  it  is  the  inspired  record  of  the  revelation 
and  preserves  its  contents. 

The  Bible  is  necessary  for  the  preservation  of  the  revelation. 
This  is  well  expressed  by  Rothe  :  “  Revelation  should  not  be  like 
a  meteor  flashing  for  a  moment  on  the  world,  but  should  fix  itself 
like  the  sun  in  the  firmament  to  bring  the  full  clear  day  over  the 
whole  circuit  of  the  earth.  It  must  then  incorporate  itself  organ¬ 
ically  into  the  existence  and  life  of  the  race,  and  become  an  his¬ 
torical  power  and  thus  a  factor  in  the  development  of  the  world’s 
history.  To  this  end  it  must  be  written.”1  As  the  kingdom 
grows  the  knowledge  of  God’s  past  action  in  establishing  it  and 
especially  of  his  coming  in  Christ,  must  be  perpetuated  and  ex¬ 
tended.  And  this  is  the  design  of  the  record  in  the  Christian 
Scriptures.  The  Bible  is  not  the  revelation  itself  but  the  record 
of  it ;  it  is  essential  to  its  preservation.  //John  Wallis,  one  of  the 
clerks  of  the  Westminster  Assembly,  said:  “The  Scriptures  in 
themselves  are  a  lantern  rather  than  a  light.”  2  But  they  who 
would  destroy  the  lantern  in  order  that  the  light  may  shine  more 
clearly  would  only  find  the  light  blown  out.  / 

The  Bible  is  the  record  of  God’s  action  in  Christ  redeeming 
men  from  sin,  as  distinguished  from  a  collection  of  doctrines  and 
precepts  revealed  in  propositions  to  inspired  men,  and  from  a  rec- 

1  Zur  Dogmatik,  pp.  121,  122.  2  Sermons,  London,  1791,  p.  127. 


458 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


ord  of  the  religious  sentiments  and  experiences  of  pious  persons. 
It  is  the  record  both  of  the  historical  or  public,  and  of  the  pro¬ 
phetic  or  private  revelations.  But  the  latter  are  presented  as 
they  were  given,  in  their  historical  setting,  in  their  place  in  the 
history  and  their  relation  to  the  then  existing  conditions  and  ex¬ 
igencies  of  the  divine  kingdom ;  and  they  are  seldom  elaborated 
into  formulas  of  doctrine  or  vindicated  by  any  argument. 

The  Bible  is  not  a  collection  of  truths  formulated  in  proposi¬ 
tions,  which  God  from  time  to  time  whispered  in  the  ear  to  be 
communicated  to  the  world  as  the  unchanging  formulas  of  thought 
and  life  for  all  time.  It  records  indeed  the  teachings  of  prophets 
and  apostles  ;  it  records  the  teachings  of  Christ  —  Logia,  as  Mat¬ 
thew  Arnold  calls  them,  “words  of  the  master,”  in  which  they, 
who  regard  him  as  a  teacher  only,  find  the  whole  significance  of 
his  mission.  But,  while  these  are  of  inestimable  worth,  they  are 
not  the  essence  of  the  biblical  revelation.  God  reveals  himself 
by  his  action  on  and  before  men.  The  revelation  recorded  in  the 
Bible  is  that  which  God  made  by  his  historic  action  redeeming 
man  from  sin,  culminating  in  Christ  and  in  the  presence  and 
power  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  issuing  in  the  continued  agencies  and 
influences  of  God’s  redeeming  grace  working  in  humanity  and 
transforming  society  into  the  kingdom  of  God.  This  historic  re¬ 
demption  and  the  life  arising  from  it  are  the  essence  of  Christian¬ 
ity.  The  Bible  therefore  is  not  a  system  of  philosophy,  ethics 
or  theology  ;  it  is  not  an  “  arsenal  of  proof-texts.”  “  The  gospel 
is  the  power  of  God  unto  salvation  to  every  one  that  believeth  ; 
to  the  Jew  first,  and  also  to  the  Greek.”  (Rom.  i.  16.)  If  we 
get  out  of  it  a  system  of  truth  as  to  God  and  his  relations  to  man, 
we  must  do  it  as  an  astronomer  gets  a  system  of  astronomy  from 
the  heavenly  bodies,  as  a  botanist  gets  a  system  of  botany  from 
the  plants,  as  a  statesman  gets  a  system  of  political  administra¬ 
tion  from  the  history  of  man.  The  facts  are  in  the  heavens,  in 
the  plants,  in  the  history  of  man ;  the  science  is  found  by  human 
observation  and  thought.  It  is  only  in  an  analogous  way  that 
we  get  our  theology,  by  studying  the  facts  of  God’s  historical  ac¬ 
tion  in  redemption  recorded  in  the  Bible. 

The  conception  of  the  Bible  as  a  collection  of  doctrines  and 
precepts  was  common  in  the  Middle  Ages  and  has  been  scarcely 
less  so  in  Protestant  theology.  Theologians  have  used  it  as  an 
arsenal  of  proof-texts.  Luther  said :  “  Therefore  are  St.  Paul's 
epistles  more  a  gospel  than  Matthew,  Mark  and  Luke.  For  the 
latter  record  not  much  more  than  the  history  of  Christ’s  works 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  CHRIST. 


459 


and  miracles.  But  the  grace  which  we  have  through  Christ  no 
one  presents  so  bravely  as  St.  Paul.  Because  now  much  more 
lies  in  the  word  than  in  the  works  and  deeds  of  Christ,  if  we 
must  dispense  with  one  of  these,  it  were  better  to  be  without  the 
works  and  the  history  than  the  word  and  doctrine ;  so  are  those 
books  to  be  valued  most  highly  which  treat  most  fully  of  the  doc¬ 
trine  and  word  of  Christ.”  1  And  coming  down  to  the  most  re¬ 
cent  times,  I  find  the  following  in  two  different  numbers  of  one 
of  our  most  widely  circulated  religious  newspapers :  “  Christ  was 
an  instructor,  a  lecturer,  a  reformer,  an  agitator,  and  not  a  mag¬ 
istrate  or  king,  or  in  any  sense  a  lawgiver.”  “  Many  Christians 
regard  the  Bible  as  a  clear  and  comprehensive  revelation  concern¬ 
ing  God  and  divine  government,  which  contains  the  whole  truth 
concerning  him  and  his  purposes,  so  that  humbly  studied  and 
heartily  received  it  will  furnish  a  complete  science  of  God  and 
divine  things.  I  do  not  so  understand  the  Bible.  It  appears  to 
me  to  be  simply  a  book  of  practical  directions  for  godly  living  in 
this  present  life.” 

Professor  Robertson  Smith  rejects  the  mediaeval  conception  of 
the  Bible  as  a  book  of  ready-made  doctrines  and  precepts ;  but  he 
falls  into  an  error  of  a  similar  kind  when  he  says:  “The  Bible  is 
a  book  of  experimental  religion.  ...  In  the  Bible  God  and  man 
meet  together  and  hold  such  converse  as  is  the  abiding  pattern 
and  rule  of  all  religious  experience.”  He  recognizes  its  historical 
character,  not  as  the  history  of  the  redemptive  action  in  which 
God  reveals  himself,  but  “  its  peculiar  worth  ”  is  in  the  record  of 
the  personal  experience  of  individuals  in  communion  with  God. 
This  is  as  erroneous  and  misleading  a  conception  as  that  which 
regards  it  primarily  as  a  revelation  of  doctrines,  or  “  a  book  of 
practical  directions  for  godly  living.”  It  remains  an  arsenal  of 
texts  as  really  as  it  was  to  the  dogmatist ;  texts  which  the  be¬ 
liever  appropriates  as  fitting  his  own  experience,  and  as  given 
primarily  for  this  very  purpose.  It  is  “  a  personal  message  to 
me.”  And  the  conception  is  of  God  primarily  making  a  private 
revelation  to  individuals,  instead  of  primarily  working  the  re¬ 
demption  of  man  and  setting  up  his  kingdom  of  righteousness. 
It  remains  as  much  as  ever  a  whispering  in  the  ear  of  an  individ¬ 
ual  instead  of  God's  majestic  march  through  history,  redeeming 
man  from  sin.2 

And  this  historic  character  of  the  Bible,  instead  of  implying 

1  Preface  to  Exposition  of  the  Epistles  of  Peter  and  Jude. 

2  The  Old  Testament  in  the  Jewish  Church,  pp.  11,  12,  13,  15,  18. 


460 


THE  SELF-RE YELATION  OF  GOD. 


any  detraction  from  its  divine  authority,  greatly  enhances  its  sig¬ 
nificance  as  a  revelation  of  God. 

It  confirms  its  truth,  as  rooted  in  history.  The  Bible  purports 
to  be  the  record  of  a  progress  of  God  through  human  history  rec¬ 
onciling  man  to  himself  and  thus  establishing  in  the  hearts  of 
men  the  reign  of  God,  the  divine  kingdom  of  righteousness  and 
good-will,  of  peace  and  joy  in  God  ;  a  progress  involving  the  com¬ 
ing  of  God  in  Christ,  the  Redeemer,  from  whom  the  redeeming 
energy  goes  out  through  all  the  world  and  continues  through  all 
following  ages,  extending  and  perpetuating  the  kingdom  of  Christ 
by  the  agency  of  men  and  women  quickened  to  the  life  of  faith 
and  Christ-like  love,  under  the  influence  of  the  ever  present  Spirit 
of  God.  The  making  of  this  biblical  record  went  on  through  the 
ages,  connected  with  the  redemptive  action  and  inseparable  from 
the  various  exigencies  of  its  progress  and  the  divine  manifesta¬ 
tions  made  in  them.  The  biblical  record  is  rooted  in  the  history 
which  it  records.  The  truth  of  the  Bible  is  the  truth  of  a  course 
of  history.  It  can  be  rooted  out  from  the  life  and  history  of 
man  only  when  this  whole  history  is  rooted  out. 

The  Bible  itself  also  must  be  accounted  for.  It  is  a  collection 
of  small  books  written  at  different  periods  in  the  course  of  many 
centuries.  The  writers  were  of  various  conditions  and  acquire¬ 
ments,  from  kings  and  priests  to  shepherds  and  fishermen,  some 
learned,  some  unlearned,  living  in  widely  separated  ages  and 
widely  different  conditions  of  society.  The  books  were  written 
in  almost  every  variety  of  literary  form.  Their  all -pervading 
idea  of  God’s  redemptive  action  and  kingdom  is  unique,  found 
nowhere  in  human  literature  outside  of  the  Bible  and  the  range 
of  its  influence.  This  great  idea  sets  forth  as  the  end  to  be 
attained,  the  highest  life  of  man,  the  realization  of  the  highest 
possibilities  of  his  being  in  righteousness  and  good-will  and  rec¬ 
onciliation  with  God,  and  the  universal  extension  of  a  spiritual 
kingdom  of  renewed  men.  Yet  these  many  authors,  writing  each 
about  the  events  and  with  the  culture  and  under  the  influence  of 
their  nation  and  age,  grasp  and  unfold  this  unique  idea  as  they 
saw  it,  in  the  forms  and  coloring  respectively  of  their  own  times. 
Such  a  result  was  possible  only  if  God  was  really  moving  through 
the  ages  in  his  redemptive  action  and  thus  actually  making  the 
revelation  which  these  books  record. 

Not  only  is  the  Bible  rooted  in  the  history  of  the  past,  but  it 
challenges  verification  from  the  history  of  the  future.  It  finds 
the  true  significance  of  history  in  the  relation  of  man  to  the  God 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  CHRIST. 


461 


of  righteousness  and  grace  and  in  the  perpetuation  and  advance¬ 
ment  of  his  spiritual  kingdom  among  men.  And  as  these  ends 
shall  be  more  and  more  realized  in  the  progressive  history  of  man, 
the  verification  of  the  Bible  will  be  continually  going  on. 

Contrast  the  Bible,  thus  the  outgrowth  of  the  ages,  with  the 
Koran,  which  records  no  redemptive  action  of  God  in  humanity 
through  the  ages,  which  had  no  roots  in  the  past,  but  was  the  cre¬ 
ation  of  a  single  man  in  a  small  part  of  a  single  life-time,  and 
professes  to  be  only  the  record  of  private  communications  made 
secretly  to  him. 

Thus  the  conception  of  the  Bible  which  I  have  presented  shows 
the  irresistible  evidence  of  its  truth  as  the  product  of  God’s  his¬ 
torical  action  through  the  ages. 

And  this  sets  aside  the  objection  of  F.  W.  Newman,  Rousseau 
and  others,  that  a  revelation  made  in  a  book  is  impossible.  As 
Rousseau  puts  it,  “  revelation  is  not  possible  even  though  God 
should  wish  it ;  for  as  the  first  truths  are  cognizable  to  all  intui¬ 
tively,  no  other  truths,  as  truths  of  religion,  can  rise  to  the  same 
rank.”  Certainly  reason  must  always  be  supreme  in  the  sphere 
of  truth.  No  miracles  can  prove  that  it  is  right  to  hate  one’s 
neighbor.  But  the  objection  rests  wholly  on  the  supposition  that 
the  Bible  is  a  collection  of  ready-made  propositions  divinely  re¬ 
vealed.  It  is  of  no  force  against  the  Bible  rightly  conceived. 
For  the  revelation  is  not  “  made  in  a  book but  made  in  the 
historical  action  of  God  in  his  redeeming  grace,  and  is  only  re¬ 
corded  in  the  book.  And  this  ought  to  have  been  perceived  by 
Rousseau  himself  when  he  put  into  the  mouth  of  the  Savoyard 
vicar  his  much  admired  confession  of  the  revelation  of  the  divine 
in  the  life  of  Christ.1 

And  this  conception  of  the  Bible  gives  it  a  certain  indepen¬ 
dence  of  the  results  of  criticism.  If  the  Bible  is  a  collection  of 
propositions  given  directly  by  God,  then  one  error  throws  sus¬ 
picion  on  all.  But  if  the  revelation  is  made  in  God’s  historical 
action  in  Israel  preparatory  to  Christ’s  coming  and  then  in  Christ 
himself,  then  a  single  error  of  fact  does  not  invalidate  the  his- 
torv  as  a  whole  ;  as  the  recent  discovery  that  Pocahontas  did  not 
interpose  between  Captain  Smith  and  the  club  of  the  savage  does 
not  disprove  the  history  of  Virginia  nor  of  these  persons  them¬ 
selves.  Critical  discussions  of  the  date  and  authorship  of  Deuter¬ 
onomy  do  not  destroy  the  credibility  of  the  history  of  Israel,  nor 
the  fact  that  messianic  prophecy  pervaded  its  literature,  nor  the 
1  fimile,  livre  iv.  pp.  369,  370.  F.  W  Newman,  The  Soul. 


462 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


fact  that  the  distinctive  service  of  Israel  to  humanity  was  to  com¬ 
municate  the  knowledge  of  the  one  true  God  and  to  bring  Christ 
and  his  benign  religion  into  the  world.  So  Ewald  rebukes  “  many 
inquirers  of  modern  times,  who  give  themselves  the  air  of  being 
very  wise  and  circumspect,  and  not  only  scorn  to  pursue  the  mod¬ 
est  traces  on  the  ground,  —  preferring  the  mazes  of  their  own 
invention,  —  but  will  surrender  even  such  a  lofty  and  conspicuous 
person  as  Moses,  the  Man  of  God.”  And  if  one  is  convinced  on 
scientific  grounds  that  Joshua  did  not  cause  the  sun  to  stand  still, 
or  on  critical  grounds  that  an  angel  did  not  trouble  the  water  in 
the  pool  of  Bethesda,  these  conclusions  do  not  make  it  necessary 
to  disbelieve  that  God  was  in  Christ  reconciling  the  world  to  him¬ 
self  or  to  abandon  all  our  religious  faith  and  hope  in  him.  If  our 
faith  rests  on  the  letter  of  the  Bible,  it  stands  unstable,  like  an 
inverted  pyramid  on  its  apex,  and  the  disturbance  of  a  letter  by 
criticism  overturns  our  faith.  But  if  our  faith  rests  on  God  as 
the  redeemer  of  men  revealed  in  his  gracious  action  in  the  his¬ 
tory  recorded  in  the  Bible,  nothing  can  unsettle  our  faith  which 
does  not  unsettle  the  whole  course  of  the  history. 

It  must  be  added  that  nothing  can  take  away  this  faith  which 
does  not  equally  take  its  deepest  significance  from  the  life  of  every 
individual  and  from  the  history  of  mankind.  Man  bound  to  the 
world  of  sense  and  shut  up  within  the  life  of  selfish  appetite  and 
desire  cannot  realize  the  nobleness  of  life,  the  ideal  of  his  being 
nor  his  true  good.  /  His  desires  grow  by  gratification,  and  his  get¬ 
ting,  with  his  most  eager  diligence,  can  never  overtake  his  dis¬ 
content.  He  is  the  Prometheus  bound  whose  ever  living  heart 
is  gnawed  by  ever  consuming  greed  and  insatiable  desires.  It  is 
the  lii#  of  insatiable  longing  and  fruitless  pursuit  which  Goethe 
has  pictured  over  and  over ;  in  Werther,  in  Wilhelm  Meister,  in 
Faust,  and  in  a  peculiar  form  in  his  Tasso,  the  type  of  one  living 
in  the  visions  of  the  poet,  in  the  sensitiveness  of  the  artist,  in 
the  refinement  of  high  culture,  and  bewildered  and  hurt  by  con¬ 
tact  with  the  realities  of  life.  In  these  characters  Goethe  pictures 
himself  and  the  life  of  unsatisfied  }7earning  and  endless  unrest  in 
which,  as  he  said  in  his  later  years,  he  himself  had  lived.  Life 
can  be  redeemed  from  this  fruitless  activity  and  ever  goading 
restlessness  only  as  man  knows  himself  in  his  relations  to  God 
and  his  likeness  to  him,  and  in  the  life  of  faith  in  God  and  uni¬ 
versal  love  becomes  a  worker  with  God  to  extend  his  kingdom  of 
righteousness  and  good-will,  and  thus  realizes  his  own  perfection 
and  wellbeing  and  sees  his  earthly  life  and  work  unfolding  into 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  CHRIST. 


463 


the  life  eternal.  Then  life  is  found  to  be  no  longer  a  failure,  a 
series  of  illusions  and  disappointments,  vanity  of  vanities  and 
vexation  of  spirit,  but  a  sphere  for  the  noblest  work  and  the 
achievement  of  the  noblest  ends,  rich  and  satisfying  alike  in  the 
pursuit  and  the  attainment,  in  which  success  is  assured  in  the  pro¬ 
gressive  realization  of  the  highest  possibilities  of  the  being  and  in 
promoting  the  highest  welfare  of  man.  In  a  Christian  life  there 
is  no  place  for  the  despairing  question,  Is  life  worth  living  ?  A 
great  philosopher  said :  “I  have  spent  my  life  in  laboriously  doing 
nothing.”  A  great  emperor  said  :  “  I  have  tried  everything,  and 
nothing  is  of  any  profit.”  Goethe  said  his  life  had  been  a  con¬ 
tinual  rolling  of  a  stone  up  hill,  which  as  continually  rolled  back. 
But  Paul  said :  “  I  have  fought  the  good  fight,  I  have  finished 
the  course,  I  have  kept  the  faith  ;  henceforth  there  is  laid  up 
for  me  the  crown  of  righteousness  ;  ”  in  the  retrospect,  fidelity, 
earnestness  and  achievement ;  in  the  future,  beyond  the  bloody 
death,  a  continued  career  from  glory  to  glory. 

The  same  line  of  thought  is  true  of  the  history  of  mankind. 
The  highest  destiny  of  the  individual  determines  the  highest  des¬ 
tiny  of  mankind.  Human  history  has  no  worthy  object  except 
as  there  is  in  the  process  of  realization  among  men  a  kingdom 
of  God  in  which  all  possible  perfection,  blessedness  and  worth 
are  progressively  attained  on  earth,  and  which,  as  the  successive 
generations  of  men  pass  away,  is  unfolding  into  the  kingdom  of 
heaven.  Pessimism  is  the  necessary  conception  of  the  life  and 
destiny  of  the  individual  and  of  the  history  and  destiny  of  man¬ 
kind,  if  we  must  leave  out  the  high  possibilities  of  man’s  being 
which  are  involved  in  his  participation  in  the  light  of  the  divine 
Reason,  in  his  likeness  to  God  in  his  rational  and  free  person¬ 
ality,  in  the  fact  of  God’s  redeeming  action  revealing  himself  in 
human  history,  and  in  man’s  capacity  nn<l  privilege  to  commune 
with  God  and  to  be  a  worker  with  him  in  the  advancement  of  his 
kingdom  of  righteousness  and  good  will.  So  Victor  Hugo  says: 
“God  is  found  at  the  end  of  all.  Let  us  not  forget  it,  but  let 
us  teach  it  to  all ;  there  would  be  no  dignity  in  living  and  life 
would  not  be  worth  its  pain,  if  we  are  to  die  totally.  That  which 
alleviates  toil,  which  sanctifies  work,  which  renders  man  strong, 
good,  wise,  patient,  beneficent,  just,  at  once  humble  and  great, 
worthy  of  intelligence,  worthy  of  liberty,  is  the  having  before 
him  the  perpetual  vision  of  a  better  world  shining  through  the 
darkness  of  this  life.”  1 

1  Speech  on  the  Falloux  Law,  1850. 


464 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


The  Bible  is  also  the  medium  of  fellowship  with  the  people  of 
God  in  all  the  ages.  It  reveals  God  in  his  redeeming  grace,  and 
the  faith  in  him  which  has  vitalized  the  Christian  experience  of 
his  people  in  all  the  ages.  Thus,  while  the  Christian  under  the 
influence  of  the  Spirit  finds  God  revealed  in  the  Bible  directly  to 
his  own  soul,  he  therein  also  finds  himself  in  fellowship  with  all 
who  have  trusted  the  God  of  grace  as  he  has  revealed  himself 
in  ages  past.  Our  God  is  the  God  of  Abraham,  of  Isaac  and  of 
Jacob.  As  Paul  declares,  “We,  brethren,  as  Isaac  was,  are  the 
children  of  promise.”  We  utter  our  devotion  in  the  words  of  pen¬ 
itence,  trust  and  praise  in  the  Hebrew  Psalms.  In  the  New  Testa¬ 
ment  we  are  brought  into  communion  with  Christ  and  his  apos¬ 
tles.  In  the  first  words  of  the  prayer  which  our  Lord  taught  us 
we  must  recognize  this  fellowship  with  all  men,  and  say,  “  Our 
father.”  Whatever  destroys  our  belief  of  God’s  revelation  of  him¬ 
self  recorded  in  the  Bible,  also  dissolves  into  illusion  all  which  is 
deepest,  purest  and  most  ennobling  in  the  fellowship  of  men. 

With  the  historical  conception  of  the  Bible  we  shall  interpret 
it  more  correctly,  shall  apprehend  its  significance  in  greater  rich¬ 
ness  and  fulness,  and  shall  apply  it  practically  with  more  wisdom 
and  efficiency. 

We  shall  interpret  it  more  correctly.  The  Bible  is  the  record 
of  God’s  historical  action  redeeming  men  from  sin  and  in  it  re¬ 
vealing  himself  as  the  God  of  righteousness  and  grace.  As  in  a 
grand  panorama  it  discloses  to  us  God  moving  in  the  courses  of 
human  history,  revealing  both  the  depths  and  heights  of  his  own 
love,  and  the  greatness  and  worth,  the  sin  and  the  needs,  the 
possibilities  and  opportunities  of  man.  The  study  of  it  as  a  mere 
collection  of  doctrines  and  precepts,  of  religious  sentiments  and 
experience,  must  miss  much  of  its  true  meaning  and  lead  into 
positive  error. 

Its  significance  also  will  be  seen  with  greater  richness  and  ful¬ 
ness.  Dean  Stanley  used  to  speak  of  the  Bible  as  “  having  far 
more  in  it  than  has  ever  been  taken  out  of  it.”  1  The  study  of 
the  Bible  as  the  history  of  God’s  revelation  of  himself  in  redeem¬ 
ing  the  world  from  sin,  is  the  study  of  a  theme  which  is  inex¬ 
haustible  ;  it  is  “  to  comprehend  with  all  the  saints  what  is  the 
breadth  and  length  and  height  and  depth,  and  to  know  the  love 
of  Christ,  which  passeth  knowledge.”  The  study  of  the  prophetic 
revelations  in  their  place  in  the  history  and  their  relation  to  the 
exigencies  of  the  kingdom  opens  in  them  new  reality  and  mean- 
1  Bradley’s  Recollections  of  Stanley,  p.  118. 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  CHRIST. 


465 


ing.  The  study  of  any  event  or  period  of  the  history  in  its  rela¬ 
tion  to  the  progressive  development  of  the  redemptive  action, 
opens  new  and  rich  mines  of  instruction.  And  the  life  and  death 
and  resurrection  of  Christ,  in  their  moral  and  spiritual  signifi¬ 
cance,  will  always  be  in  advance  of  the  progress  of  man. 

And  the  beneficent  moral  influence  of  the  Bible  is  the  greater 
because  it  records  God’s  revelation  of  himself  by  Kis  action  in 
human  history.  God  reveals  himself  not  to  scholars  only  but  to 
mankind.  The  historical  is  the  most  effective  method  of  reach¬ 
ing  all  minds.  “  History  is  philosophy  teaching  by  examples.” 

/  A  Unitarian  writer,  trying  to  explain  the  superior  power  of  the 
evangelical  preaching,  gave  as  the  reason  the  fact  that  the  evan¬ 
gelical  conception  of  revelation  is  more  dramatic.  It  opens  with 
Eden  and  the  Fall ;  it  discloses  God  visiting  judgments  on  men 
for  sin,  the  flood,  the  storm  of  fire  on  Sodom  ;  giving  his  law  and 
entering  into  covenant  with  the  people  at  Sinai ;  going  before 
them  and  encamping  among  them,  the  light  of  his  tabernacle 
seen  every  evening  from  the  surrounding  tents.  Then  it  shows 
him  revealed  among  men  in  Christ  going  about  doing  good,  bear¬ 
ing  men’s  sorrows  and  sins,  opening  the  inmost  heart  of  God  in 
love  to  men  even  to  the  cross,  then  rising  triumphant  over  death 
in  man’s  behalf,  reigning  in  heaven  bearing  them  always  on  his 
heart,  and  yet  dwelling  among  men  everywhere  and  always  in  his 
Spirit,  unseen,  yet  closer  to  them  and  more  intimate  with  them 
than  when  his  tabernacle  was  among  them  or  even  when  in  Christ 
he  was  with  them  on  the  earth.  It  is  dramatic  indeed^  but  it 
is  the  drama  of  God’s  real  history  among  men  seeking  the  lost 
and  reconciling  sinners  to  himself.  The  revelation  of  God  in  this 
great  drama  of  redemption  is  the  power  of  the  Bible.  The  Bible 
is  the  glass  through  which  we  look  back  through  the  vista  of  the 
ages  and  see  God  moving  among  men  in  his  righteousness  and 
grace,  educating  them  to  capacity  to  know  him,  and  to  know 
themselves  in  their  true  dignity  and  capacity  in  their  relation  to 
him,  developing  them  to  receptivity  of  larger  communications  of 
his  grace  and  to  greater  spiritual  power  in  achieving  great  re¬ 
sults  in  the  service  of  God  and  man,  and  thereby  to  the  develop¬ 
ment  of  themselves  toward  perfection  and  the  realization  of  the 
highest  possibilities  of  spiritual  love,  wisdom,  beauty  and  power; 
and  thus  bringing  in  everlasting  righteousness  and  so  revealing 
himself  with  ever  increasing  glory  as  the  Saviour  of  man.  Here 
is  the  fullest  revelation  of  man,  opening  to  us  in  long  vistas  the 

significance  of  his  history  in  the  past  and  of  his  destiny  in  the 

30 


466 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


future.  Here  also  God  makes  the  fullest  revelation  of  himself. 
His  archetypal  plan  comes  into  view  traced  in  the  long  line  of 
his  righteous  and  gracious  action  through  the  past  and  brighten¬ 
ing  onward  into  the  glories  of  the  future  ;  in  redemption  he  comes 
into  multiplied  and  intimate  connections  with  man  and  therein 
reveals  himself  as  Father,  Son  and  Holy  Spirit ;  his  inmost  be¬ 
ing  seems  to  unfold  to  sight  in  the  fulness  of  his  communication 
of  himself  to  sinful  men  in  saving  them  from  sin  ;  the  depths  of 
his  love  and  wisdom  are  opened  to  view,  as  when  the  doors  of  a 
great  palace  are  thrown  open  and  we  look  in  on  its  rich  rooms 
and  lengthening  halls. 

But  notwithstanding  this  wide  range  through  history,  this 
world-wide  grandeur  and  magnificence  of  God’s  revelation  of 
himself  and  of  his  kingdom  recorded  in  the  Bible,  or  rather  for 
these  very  reasons,  it  is  the  book  which  brings  God  nearest  to  the 
individual  believer  and  closest  to  his  own  personal  experience  and 
spiritual  needs.  It  is  to  every  Christian  a  word  in  season,  a  word 
to  the  heart.  And  like  no  other  book  it  comes  to  the  spiritual 
mind  with  a  self-revealing  and  self-evidencing  power  and  con¬ 
vinces  him  of  the  divine  authority  of  the  revelation  which  it  de¬ 
clares.  As  Rothe  says :  “  What  most  impresses  the  right  reader 
of  the  Bible  is  just  this,  that  in  it  and  nowhere  else  the  Christian 
religious  truths  which  he  has  longest  confessed  come  to  him  as 
with  supernatural  light,  with  such  original  truth  to  nature,  such 
fresh  breathing  life,  such  transparent  purity,  such  majestic  and 
commanding  authority,  that  he  finds  himself  immediately  con¬ 
vinced  of  their  reality  and  obliged  to  give  himself  up  to  them.”  1 

VII.  After  Christ’s  ascension  the  divine  action  in  redemption 
is  continued  by  the  Holy  Spirit. 

The  belief  in  a  divine  influence  on  men  is  not  peculiar  to  Chris¬ 
tianity.  It  is  commonly  recognized  in  some  form  in  the  ethnic 
religions.  The  peculiarity  of  Christianity  in  this  respect  is  that 
the  Spirit  of  God  in  his  universal  presence  continues  the  work  of 
redemption.  The  redeeming  energy  of  God  which  centred  in 
Christ,  proceeds  from  him  in  the  Holy  Spirit,  perpetuating  and 
diffusing  the  offers,  the  influences  and  agencies  of  God’s  redeem¬ 
ing  grace.  Thus  the  Spirit  is  distinctively  the  divine  witness  to 
Christ  through  all  the  ages.  God  does  not  complete  redemption 
in  the  earthly  history  of  Christ.  In  him  he  makes  atonement  for 
sin  and  opens  the  way  for  the  outpouring  of  the  influences  of  his 
grace  in  all  their  fulness  on  all  mankind  in  the  Holy  Spirit.  Nor 

1  Zur  Dogmatik,  p.  165. 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  CHRIST. 


467 


does  he  leave  the  communication  of  the  glad  tidings  of  his  grace 
in  Christ  to  the  record  of  it  in  the  Bible  and  to  the  faithfulness 
and  diligence  of  his  people.  But  in  the  Spirit  he  continues  to 
dwell  and  act  among  men,  testifying  of  God’s  grace  in  Christ  and 
with  divine  influences  drawing  them  to  return  to  him  in  faith 
and  love.  Hence  the  testimony  of  God  himself  in  the  Spirit  to 
Christ  and  the  divine  grace  in  him  is  given  in  the  soul  of  men 
who  open  their  hearts  and  minds  to  receive  it,  and  this  goes  with 
the  Bible  and  the  efforts  of  the  church  to  perpetuate  Christian 
faith  among  men. 

But  here  again  the  witness  is  not  by  communicating  a  truth  to 
the  intellect,  but  by  actually  continuing  the  work  of  redeeming 
men  from  sin  by  quickening  them  to  the  new  and  spiritual  life, 
inspiring  them  to  Christ-like  love  and  work  in  drawing  men  away 
from  sin  and  advancing  Christ’s  kingdom  on  earth,  and  so  de¬ 
veloping  them  in  spiritual  purity,  completeness  and  power. 

The  knowledge  of  Christ  by  his  disciples  and  their  communion 
with  him  were  necessarily  incomplete  while  he  was  with  them  in 
the  flesh  ;  for  his  presence  was  limited  to  one  place,  and  the  great 
revelation,  by  his  death,  resurrection  and  ascension,  and  by  the 
coming  of  the  Spirit,  was  not  yet  made.  After  he  was  gone  their 
knowledge  of  him  and  communion  with  him  were  more  complete. 
Then  they  began,  under  the  quickening  of  the  Spirit,  to  tread 
with  intelligence  the  Way  of  Christ  and  to  preach  him  with 
power.  So  Christ  himself  had  said,  44  It  is  expedient  for  you 
that  I  go  away.” 

Therefore  the  influence  of  Jesus  after  his  death  is  not  merely 
like  the  posthumous  influence  of  a  great  man,  surviving  in  the  re¬ 
membrance  of  his  life,  in  the  consequences  of  his  deeds,  the  record 
of  his  instructions,  or  even  in  the  institutions  which  he  founded. 
He  is  present  and  acting  among  men  in  the  Spirit  whom  he  sends 
and  in  whom  he  is  administering  his  kingdom  of  grace  on  the 
earth.  Thus  is  his  own  word  fulfilled  :  44  Lo,  I  am  with  you  alway, 
even  unto  the  end  of  the  world.”  We  must  not  suppose  that  God’s 
work  of  redemption  was  finished  in  the  earthly  life  of  Christ  — 
a  transitory  wonder,  like  the  sheet  let  down  from  heaven  before 
the  astonished  eyes  of  Peter  and  then  drawn  up  again  and  seen 
no  more.  It  continues  through  the  history  of  man.  And  this 
even  the  symbolization  of  the  Scriptures  represents.  In  the  the- 
ophanies  the  common  symbol  of  God’s  manifestation  was  light; 
the  flaming  sword  which  guarded  Eden,  the  burning  bush,  the 
fire  and  cloud  which  guided  Israel  in  the  wilderness,  which  envel- 


468 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


oped  Sinai  and  filled  the  tabernacle  and  the  temple,  the  over¬ 
powering  glory  before  which  prophets  fell  and  became  as  dead 
men.  This  peculiar  manifestation  of  God  the  Jews  called  the  She- 
chinah.  The  same  symbol  repeatedly  manifested  the  glory  of  the 
Christ,  in  the  bright  cloud  which  overshadowed  him  in  his  trans¬ 
figuration,  and  which  received  him  at  his  ascension,  in  the  glory 
brighter  than  the  sun  in  which  he  appeared  to  Paul,  in  the  re¬ 
splendence  in  which  he  was  seen  by  John  in  Patmos,  his  face 
like  the  sun  shining  in  his  strength  and  his  very  feet  like  brass 
heated  to  whiteness  in  a  furnace.  The  same  symbol  manifested 
the  Holy  Spirit  on  the  day  of  Pentecost,  cloven  tongues  of  fire  on 
each  disciple.  It  is  a  fit  symbol ;  for  light  with  its  accompanying 
heat  is  the  guide  of  all  action  and  the  nourisher  of  all  life ;  it  is 
essentially  pure,  incapable  of  taking  on  itself  any  defilement  even 
by  contact  with  pollution,  and  purifying  even  to  burning.  The 
Shechinah  is,  indeed,  no  longer  seen ;  the  voice  of  God  speaking 
from  heaven  is  no  longer  heard ;  “  no  angel’s  pinion  gleams  along 
the  empyrean  now.”  But  the  Spirit  of  God,  silent  and  all-per¬ 
vading,  is  perpetually  carrying  forward  redemption  to  its  consum¬ 
mation.  And  in  this  we  have  an  advantage.  While  the  ancient 
revelations  were  made  to  favored  prophets  and  apostles  and  were 
by  them  communicated,  the  Spirit  comes  with  the  gospel  to  each 
and  all.  His  divine  influence  is  at  once  universal  and  individ¬ 
ualizing  ;  it  pervades  the  whole,  it  concentres  on  every  one.  It 
knocks  at  every  door ;  it  enters  every  opened  heart  and  dwells 
within  it.  This  universality  and  individualization  were  perhaps 
symbolized  by  the  manner  of  his  manifestation  on  the  day  of 
Pentecost :  the  Shechinah  broken  up  into  lambent  flames  resting 
severally  on  every  one. 

In  his  parting  words  to  his  disciples  the  Lord  had  said  :  “  I  as¬ 
cend  to  my  Father  and  your  Father,  and  to  my  God  and  your 
God  ;  ”  “  all  authority  hath  been  given  unto  me  in  heaven  and 
on  earth;”  and  he  had  promised,  after  his  exaltation  to  send  to 
them  his  Spirit  who  should  abide  with  them  forever.  The  descent 
of  the  Spirit  on  the  day  of  Pentecost  was  the  present  token  and 
pledge  that  the  Lord  had  triumphantly  accomplished  all  which 
he  had  said,  and  that  in  his  exaltation  he  remembered  his  disci¬ 
ples  left  on  earth  and  had  fulfilled  his  promise.  And  the  influ¬ 
ence  of  God’s  Spirit  on  any  human  heart  through  all  time  is  a 
present  token  and  pledge  of  the  same.  Nor  is  this  all.  By  the 
influence  of  the  Spirit  we  are  brought  into  immediate  connection 
with  the  Lord,  as  the  rays  of  the  sun  falling  on  us  bring  us  into 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  CHRIST. 


469 


immediate  connection  with  the  sun.  In  that  influence  the  en¬ 
ergy  of  redeeming  grace  strikes  on  our  souls ;  we  are  brought  into 
contact  with  the  heart  of  God  and  feel  the  throbbing  of  his  love 
knocking  evermore  for  a  responsive  love.  Then,  rejoicing  in 
God,  we  rise  up  new  witnesses  from  our  own  experience  of  the 
power  of  God  to  redeem  from  condemnation  and  sin.  And 
through  all  the  Christian  ages  every  one  who  has  had  the  like 
experience  has  become  a  witness  to  Christ  revealed  in  his  own 
consciousness  by  the  Spirit  of  God.  Their  united  testimony 
comes  to  us  from  all  the  ages,  like  that  which  John  heard  from 
the  hosts  of  the  blessed  in  heaven,  “as  the  voice  of  many  waters 
and  as  the  voice  of  a  great  thunder ;  and  as  the  voice  of  harpers 
harping  with  their  harps  ;  and  they  sing  as  it  were  a  new  song.” 
This  is  the  witness  of  the  Spirit  to  Christ  in  the  consciousness  and 
the  deepest  experience  of  every  Christian. 

VIII.  Christianity  is  ideal  as  well  as  historical.  But  the  ideal 
Christ  necessarily  implies  the  historical  Christ. 

Rationalistic  writers  have  attempted  to  retain  an  ideal  Christ 
while  neglecting  or  rejecting  the  historical.  So  Strauss :  “  The 
attempt  to  retain  in  combination  the  ideal  in  Christ  with  the  his¬ 
torical  having  failed,  these  two  elements  separate  themselves  , 
the  latter  falls  as  a  natural  residuum  to  the  ground,  and  the  for¬ 
mer  rises  as  a  pure  sublimate  to  the  ethereal  world  of  ideas.”  1 
The  ideal  has  been  presented  in  various  forms  ;  the  subjective 
idea  of  moral  perfection ;  the  objective  idea  of  God’s  presence  in 
the  human  race  as  a  whole.  With  some,  Christianity  becomes 
nothing  more  than  a  collection  of  moral  precepts  and  prohibitions. 
Matthew  Arnold  presents  two  virtues,  kindness  and  pureness, 
charity  and  chastity,  and  says :  “  If  any  virtues  could  stand  for 
the  whole  of  Christianity,  these  might.”  Of  the  deeper  concep¬ 
tion  of  Christ  and  Christianity  which  has  prevailed  through  the 
ages  he  says  :  “  The  immense  pathos,  so  perpetually  enlarged 

upon,  of  his  (Christ’s)  life  and  death,  does  really  culminate  here : 
that  Christians  have  so  profoundly  misunderstood  him.”  2 

The  reply  is  that  the  ideal  of  Christianity  can  be  found  only 
in  the  historical  Christ.  This  is  exemplified  in  the  authors  just 
now  quoted,  who  miss  the  distinctive  idea  of  Christianity.  The 
same  must  be  the  failure  of  every  attempt  to  find  the  ideal  Christ 
without  the  historical.  Christianity  assumes  as  already  existing 
a  knowledge  of  God  and  his  law,  of  sin  and  the  need  of  reconcili- 

1  Strauss,  Life  of  Jesus,  vol.  ii.  p.  887,  Miss  Evans’s  Trans. 

2  Last  Essays  on  the  Church  and  Religion,  pp.  xx.  53. 


470 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


ation  with  God.  These  are  not  distinctive  of  Christianity.  All 
that  is  peculiar  and  distinctive  in  Christianity  is  known  only  in 
the  revelation  which  God  makes  of  himself  in  his  action  in  hu¬ 
man  history  redeeming  men  from  sin  and  centring  in  Christ. 

So  Biedermann  says  :  “  The  Christian  religion  will  be  the  re¬ 
demption  of  the  natural  man  out  of  his  disunion  from  God  into 
freedom  in  God  through  the  full  revelation  of  God’s  grace  in 
Jesus  Christ,  the  object  of  its  faith.”1  God  reveals  himself  in 
redemptive  action  centring  in  Christ.  But  we  must  interpret 
that  action  and  read  the  idea  of  God  and  of  man  set  forth  in  it. 
We  stand  before  the  redemptive  action  in  Christ  as  the  scientist 
stands  before  the  physical  world,  reads  the  thought  expressed  in 
its  masses  and  molecules  and  their  interaction,  and  thus  appre¬ 
hends  them  in  science.  So  we  observe  God’s  action  in  Christ  re¬ 
deeming  men  from  sin,  read  in  it  the  thought  or  idea  which  it  ex¬ 
presses,  and  thus  apprehend  it  in  theology.  It  is  said  there  is  no 
theology  in  the  history  of  Christ  and  no  theology  in  the  biblical 
history ;  and  in  the  same  sense  it  is  true  that  there  is  no  science 
in  nature.  The  science  in  the  one  case  and  the  theology  in  the 
other  is  simply  the  apprehension  and  enunciation  of  the  idea  or 
thought  disclosed  in  the  facts.  In  each  it  is  the  facts  translated 
into  thought  and  so  apprehended,  distinguished  and  comprehended 
in  the  mind.  There  can  be  no  astronomical  knowledge  of  the  sun 
except  what  is  obtained  from  the  sun  itself  ;  and  the  ideal  sun  of 
science  implies  the  existence  of  the  real  sun.  So  the  distinctive 
truths  of  Christianity  can  be  found  only  in  Christ  and  the  his¬ 
torical  redemption  in  him.  And  necessarily  if  the  ideal  Christ  is 
accepted  as  true,  the  historical  Christ  must  be  accepted  as  real. 

At  whatever  point  we  find  a  spiritual  truth  or  motive  distinc¬ 
tive  of  Christianity,  we  find  it  inherent  in  the  historical  Christ 
and  the  historical  action  centring  in  him. 

While  in  other  religions  man  thinks  of  himself  as  seeking  God, 
in  Christ  God  reveals  himself  as  seeking  man.  While  in  other 
religions  men  think  themselves  obliged  to  make  God  propitious, 
God  reveals  himself  in  Christ  as  graciously  disposed  towards  sin¬ 
ners  ;  not  only  willing  to  forgive  any  who  return  to  him,  but  seek¬ 
ing  men  in  their  sins  to  draw  them  back  to  filial  trust  in  him  and 
so  to  reinstate  them  in  their  normal  condition  of  union  with  God. 
His  attitude  toward  the  sinner  is  not  merely  that  of  the  father 
willing  to  receive  the  prodigal  son  when  he  returns  in  penitence 
and  rags,  but  also  that  of  the  shepherd  going  out  on  the  moun- 

1  Cliristlicke  Dogmatik,  §113,  p.  131. 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  CHRIST. 


471 


tains  to  seek  and  recover  the  sheep  that  had  strayed  from  the 
fold,  exposing  himself  to  the  perils  of  the  mountain’s  storms  and 
cold,  its  slippery  precipices  and  savage  beasts,  from  which  he  seeks 
to  save  the  sheep.  “  God  so  loved  the  world.”  God's  good-will, 
his  gracious  disposition  to  save,  precedes  the  sinner’s  return ;  if 
not,  the  sinner  would  return  in  vain.  And  when  man  by  sin¬ 
ning  has  disrupted  his  union  with  God,  has  rushed  away  in  his  iso¬ 
lation  and  individuation,  and  his  will  is  set  in  his  self-sufficiency 
on  himself  as  his  supreme  object  of  trust  and  service,  then  if  left 
unsought  and  untouched  by  God,  he  would  have  no  disposition  to 
return.  But  God,  “  not  wishing  that  any  should  perish  but  that 
all  should  come  to  repentance,”  follows  the  sinner  with  his  love 
on  his  darkening  way,  as  the  sun  follows  with  its  attraction  a 
comet  in  its  remotest  flight  to  draw  it  back  to  itself. 

This  is  God’s  attitude  always  toward  all  for  whom  Christ  died. 
But  this  doctrine  is  not  independent  of  God’s  historical  action 
redeeming  men  from  sin  in  Christ ;  it  merely  declares  one  item 
of  its  significance. 

In  Christ  God  unites  himself,  not  with  a  particular  man  al¬ 
ready  existing,  but  with  humanity  itself  in  all  its  essential  attri¬ 
butes.  In  him  God  enters  humanity  with  redeeming  grace,  and 
from  him  pours  into  humanity  the  divine  Light  and  Life  and 
Love  to  renovate  man  to  spiritual  life  and  draw  him  back  into 
union  with  himself.  In  Christ  God  is  revealed  in  his  grace  to 
man,  and  man  is  revealed  in  his  normal  condition,  in  union  with 
God  and  in  the  realization  of  his  archetypal  perfection.  Christ  is 
the  new  Head  of  the  human  race  in  whom  man  is  to  be  born  of 
the  Spirit  and  quickened  to  a  new  spiritual  life,  and  is  to  realize 
the  perfection  and  good  which  he  has  missed  by  separating  him¬ 
self  from  God  in  sin.  Thus  Christ  is  “the  manifestation  of  a 
person  in  whom  the  eternally  ideal  had  become  the  historically 
real.” 

The  same  dependence  of  the  idea  of  Christianity  on  the  histor¬ 
ical  Christ  appears  in  the  progress  of  Christianity,  both  in  the 
renovation  of  individuals  and  the  progress  of  the  kingdom  of 
Christ.  A  distinctive  doctrine  of  Christianity  appears  in  its 
unique  idea  of  the  kingdom  of  Christ  on  earth ;  the  community 
of  those  who  have  been  reunited  to  God  through  his  redeeming 
grace,  and  by  their  common  union  with  God  in  Christ  are  united 
with  one  another  in  fellowship  in  the  Christian  community. 
This  kingdom  is  in  the  world  like  the  leaven  and  the  mustard- 
seed  ;  and  as  it  spreads  and  grows,  is  gradually  transforming  hu- 


472 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


man  society  into  the  kingdom  of  God.  We  note  its  coming  in 
the  spiritual  renovation  of  individuals,  in  the  training  of  children 
for  Christ,  in  the  moral  purification  of  society,  in  every  overthrow 
of  wicked  institutions,  usages  and  laws,  in  every  reformation 
which  is  a  real  and  permanent  uplift  of  society.  And  while  it  is 
thus  renovating  individuals  and  society  in  this  life,  it  is  from  gen¬ 
eration  to  generation  continuously  flowing  over,  like  a  great  river 
into  the  ocean,  into  the  life  eternal  in  heaven.  And  so  it  is  to 
continue  till  the  consummation  of  human  history  on  earth.  And 
this  will  be  in  the  coming  of  the  historical  Christ  and  the  award¬ 
ing  to  all  men  of  their  destiny  by  him  in  the  final  judgment. 
But  the  progress  of  Christ’s  kingdom  through  the  ages  is  not  by 
the  power  of  truth  alone.  But  in  his  kingdom  on  earth  Christ  is 
present  in  his  Spirit,  in  whom  the  light  and  energy  of  his  redeem¬ 
ing  grace  are  brought  to  bear  on  men.  As  Paul  says,  “  The  Lord 
is  the  Spirit.”  It  is  in  and  through  the  Spirit  that  Christ  is  in 
us  and  we  in  Christ,  and  our  normal  condition  of  union  with  God 
is  attained  anew.  Hence  “the  ideal  Christ”  is  not  a  subjective 
idea  of  our  own  minds,  nor  truth  and  precept  intellectually  ap¬ 
prehended.  Rather,  if  we  must  speak  of  the  ideal  Christ,  it  is 
the  living  Spirit  of  Christ  pervading  humanity  with  the  offers  and 
influences  of  redeeming  grace  brought  into  the  world  through 
him,  and  revealing  him  in  our  own  consciousness. 

Therefore  the  spiritual  doctrine,  precept  and  motive  of  Chris¬ 
tianity  centre  on  the  historical  Christ  and  the  historical  action  of 
God  in  redemption  wrought  through  him.  If  the  ideal  Christ  is 
true  the  historical  Christ  is  real.  For  the  essence  of  Christianity 
is  not  speculative  nor  ethical  philosophy,  but  the  redemption  of 
man  from  sin  in  the  person  of  Jesus  Christ. 

Christianity  has  its  doctrine,  its  speculative  and  ethical  philos¬ 
ophy  ;  but  they  rest  on  the  historical  facts  of  redemption  through 
Christ,  and  take  up  and  express  their  significance.  They  grasp 
the  true  idea  and  greatness  of  man,  the  significance  of  his  his¬ 
tory,  the  ideal  of  his  perfection  and  wellbeing,  and  the  possibili¬ 
ties  of  his  destiny,  with  a  depth,  clearness  and  comprehensiveness 
wanting  in  all  philosophy  which  takes  no  note  of  the  real  facts  of 
man’s  relation  to  God.  It  is  only  as  man  is  known  in  his  rela¬ 
tions  to  God  in  redemption  that  we  get  the  true  philosophy  of  his 
history,  the  true  conception  of  man  himself  and  of  the  possibilities 
of  his  being,  and  of  human  society  in  its  true  progress  and  des¬ 
tiny.  Man’s  history  and  destiny  remain  inexplicable  to  the  rea¬ 
son  until  we  know  him  in  his  relation  to  God  in  Christ  redeeming 


GOD  REVEALED  IN  CHRIST. 


473 


him  from  sin.  It  is  evident  therefore  that  the  ideal  Christ  can¬ 
not  be  separated  from  the  historical.  The  fact  that  we  have  the 
ideal,  can  be  accounted  for  only  by  the  historical  existence  of  the 
real  Christ.  As  Professor  Hedge  says :  “  If  the  Christ  of  the 
church  is  an  ideal  being,  it  was  Jesus  who  made  the  ideal.  The 
ideal  in  him  is  simply  the  result  of  that  disengagement  from  the 
earthly  vestiture  which  death  and  distance  work  in  all  who  live 
in  history.'1  And  Theodore  Parker  says:  “  Shall  we  be  told, 
Such  a  man  never  lived  ;  the  whole  story  is  a  lie  ?  Suppose  that 
Plato  and  Newton  never  lived  ;  that  their  story  is  a  lie.  But  who 
did  their  works  and  thought  their  thought  ?  It  takes  a  New¬ 
ton  to  forge  a  Newton.  What  man  could  have  fabricated  Jesus? 
None  but  Jesus."  2 

Therefore  in  seeking  the  central  idea  of  Christianity  we  must 
begin  with  the  revelation  of  God  in  Christ  reconciling  the  world 
unto  himself.  If  Christ  is  the  God  in  man  redeeming  man  from 
condemnation  and  sin,  if  the  story  of  that  wondrous  life  and  death 
and  triumph  over  death  is  true,  then  in  its  full  scope  and  ultimate 
intent  it  cannot  have  been  designed  for  any  nation  or  section  of 
men  exclusively,  but  is  broad  and  deep  as  humanity.  It  cannot 
be  limited  in  its  influence  to  any  partial  sphere  of  human  thought 
and  action,  but  must  throw  its  light  and  influence  on  all.  Chris¬ 
tian  theology  must  centre  on  it.  Philosophy  cannot  be  complete 
if  it  takes  no  note  of  this  great  revelation  of  God  in  his  relation 
to  man,  and  of  man  in  his  relation  to  God.  Even  in  relation  to 
physical  science  it  answers  questions  which  the  science  inevitably 
raises  but  which  it  makes  no  attempt  to  answer  because  they 
reach  beyond  its  province ;  and  it  declares  the  worthy  ends  for 
which  the  world  exists  and  the  glorious  issues  of  its  evolution  in 
the  future.  It  must  be  the  central  fact  in  human  history ;  es¬ 
sential  to  disclose  the  true  significance  of  historical  events  and 
periods,  and  the  true  principles  and  aims  of  human  politics,  civil¬ 
ization  and  progress,  and  to  reveal  in  the  progressive  kingdom  of 
God  the  highest  destiny  of  man.  It  is  also  central  in  the  life  of 
the  individual  man,  the  very  turning-point  of  his  destiny,  as  it 
comes  to  him  in  the  invitation  and  energy  of  God’s  redeeming 
grace,  awakening  him  to  the  consciousness  of  spiritual  relations, 
obligations  and  privileges,  calling  him  to  enter  the  kingdom  of 
God  which  has  come  to  him,  drawing  him  to  return  to  union  and 
communion  with  God. 

1  Ways  of  the  Spirit,  p.  338. 

2  Discourse  of  Religion,  Boston  ed.  1842,  p.  363. 


CHAPTER  XV. 


MIRACLES. 

I.  Definition.  —  A  miracle  is  an  effect  in  nature  which  nei¬ 
ther  physical  forces  acting  in  the  uniform  sequences  of  cause  and 
effect  nor  man  in  the  exercise  of  his  constitutional  powers  are 
adequate  to  effect,  and  which  therefore  reveals  the  agency  of  some 
supernatural  being  other  than  man. 

A  miracle  presupposes  the  system  or  course  of  nature.  “  Na¬ 
ture  ”  as  here  used  means  the  physical  system.  It  includes  the 
whole  of  impersonal  being,  conditioned  in  time  and  space  and 
the  subject  of  continuous  transition  through  the  energy  of  effi¬ 
cient  causes  acting  as  they  are  acted  on  in  the  uniform  sequences 
of  cause  and  effect.  These  uniform  sequences  are  called  laws 
of  nature.  A  miracle  is  an  effect  in  the  physical  system  which 
these  causes  acting  in  these  uniform  sequences  would  never  have 
effected. 

A  miracle  also  presupposes  a  supernatural  system.  By  this  I 
mean  the  moral,  rational  or  spiritual  system.  Man  is  a  supernat¬ 
ural  being.  As  endowed  with  reason  and  free  will  and  susceptible 
of  rational  motives  he  is  a  personal  being  and  as  such  above  na¬ 
ture  or  supernatural.1  He  thus  knows  what  the  supernatural  is. 
By  his  own  rational  free  action  on  nature  he  has  knowledge  of 
the  supernatural  acting  on  nature.  A  miracle  therefore  is  not 
the  revelation  of  a  kind  of  agency  foreign  to  his  experience  and 
so  unknowable,  but  of  a  rational  free  agency  like  his  own  ;  and 
supernatural  because  it  is  rational,  free  and  personal.  By  this 
knowledge  in  his  own  experience  he  can  recognize  a  supernatural 
agency  in  the  effects  in  which  it  manifests  itself.  A  miracle  is 
an  effect  in  nature  manifesting  the  agency  of  some  supernatural 
being  other  than  man. 

1  Professor  Thomas  H.  Green  of  Oxford,  says,  that  the  self-conscious  will 
of  man  “  does  not  consist  in  a  series  of  natural  events  ...  is  not  natural  in 
the  ordinary  sense  of  that  term;  not  natural  at  any  rate  in  any  sense  in  which 
naturalness  would  imply  its  determination  by  antecedent  events  or  by  condi¬ 
tions  of  which  it  is  not  itself  the  source.” 


MIRACLES. 


475 


Man  belongs  both  to  the  physical  system  and  to  the  moral ; 
both  to  nature  and  the  supernatural.  As  to  his  physical  organi¬ 
zation  he  is  implicated  in  nature.  The  physical  forces  in  their 
unvarying  sequences  sweep  through  his  being  as  resistlessly  as 
through  a  rose  or  crystal.  But  in  knowing  himself  and  his  fel¬ 
low-men  he  knows  the  spiritual  system  and  his  own  participation 
in  it.  As  participating  and  acting  in  both  spheres,  and  as  acting 
by  his  own  free  will  on  nature,  he  knows  that  the  two  systems 
are  not  sundered  by  any  impassable  gulf,  but  are  in  the  closest 
communication  and  interaction.  Thus  he  knows  that  the  action 
on  nature  of  personal  beings  other  than  man,  if  such  exist,  is  pos¬ 
sible  without  any  interruption  of  its  uniformity  and  continuity. 

A  miracle  as  such  does  not  reveal  the  moral  character  of  the 
agent.  That  is  revealed  in  the  character  and  design  of  the  mira¬ 
cle,  as  the  moral  character  and  intent  of  a  man  are  revealed  by 
his  action. 

In  this  definition  of  a  miracle  we  must  notice  two  different 
meanings  of  law.  Laws  are  primarily  principles  of  reason  ;  as, 
that  every  beginning  or  change  has  a  cause,  that  the  same  com¬ 
plex  of  causes  always  produces  the  same  effect,  and  others. 
These  laws  regulate  both  thought  and  things,  and  they  persist 
unchanged  through  all  changes  and  convulsions,  through  all  pro¬ 
duction  and  all  dissolution ;  and  all  changes  must  accord  with 
them.  No  action  of  power,  even  though  almighty,  ever  inter¬ 
rupts  their  operation.  Every  miracle  is  wrought  in  accordance 
with  them. 

In  accordance  with  these  laws  there  are  uniform  factual  se¬ 
quences  which  are  also  called  laws  of  nature,  but  only  in  a  sec¬ 
ondary  sense.  These  do  not  persist  forever.  A  new  force  may 
begin  to  act  in  the  complex  of  causes  which  has  produced  this 
factual  sequence,  and  the  sequence  is  interrupted.  But  this  very 
interruption  of  the  sequence  is  effected  only  in  accordance  with 
the  unchanging  principles  of  reason  which  are  the  laws  of  nature 
in  the  true  and  deeper  sense.  The  rotation  of  the  earth  is  a  uni¬ 
form  factual  sequence  of  this  sort,  which  has  been  uninterrupted 
throughout  the  entire  experience  of  mankind.  But  it  had  a  be¬ 
ginning  and  science  teaches  that  it  will  come  to  an  end.  But 
its  beginning  and  its  ending  must  be  accordant  with  the  true  and 
deeper  laws  of  nature,  the  principles  of  reason. 

A  miracle  supposes  a  rational  free  will,  which  is  above  nature, 
acting  as  a  new  cause  in  a  physical  complex  of  causes  and  pro¬ 
ducing  an  effect  which  the  physical  causes  left  to  themselves 


476 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


would  not  have  produced.  This  is  the  essence  of  a  miracle.  But 
the  free  will  itself,  though  it  may  interrupt  a  uniform  factual 
sequence,  can  do  it  only  in  exact  accord  with  the  principles  of 
reason  which  are  the  true  and  never  changing  laws  of  nature,  and 
regulate  all  thought  and  all  energy.  The  action  of  the  human 
free  will  is  of  the  essence  of  a  miracle.  It  is  open  to  every  ob¬ 
jection  which  can  be  urged  against  a  miracle.  On  the  other  hand 
the  reality  of  human  free  will  removes  all  objections  from  the 
uniformity  and  continuity  of  nature  to  the  possibility  of  mira¬ 
cles.  But  since  we  are  familiar  with  the  action  of  the  human 
will,  we  do  not  call  it  a  miracle.  We  give  the  name,  miracle, 
only  to  effects  in  nature  transcending  the  power  of  man  and  re¬ 
vealing  a  supernatural  agent  transcending  man.  But  the  proof 
of  the  existence  of  free  will  in  man  is  equally  proof  of  the  possi¬ 
bility  of  miracles,  provided  free  will  exists  in  God  or  in  any  per¬ 
sonal  free  agent  other  than  man. 

It  follows  that  the  question  as  to  the  reality  and  possibility  of 
miracles  resolves  itself  into  the  question  as  to  the  reality  and 
possibility  of  rational  free  will.  It  is  the  question  whether  any 
rational  free  will  can  exist  either  in  God  or  man.  The  denial  of 
miracles,  on  the  ground  of  their  impossibility  in  consistence  with 
the  continuity  and  uniformity  of  nature,  involves  the  denial  of 
free,  will  and  the  assertion  that  all  human  action  is  necessitated 
by  antecedent  physical  force  in  the  fixed  course  of  nature,  as 
completely  as  are  the  running  of  water  and  the  falling  of  stones. 

II.  Possibility  of  miracles.  —  All  objections  to  miracles 
resolve  themselves  into  this  :  A  miracle  is  impossible  because 
it  interrupts  the  uniformity,  continuity  and  unity  of  nature.  It 
would  be  a  foreign  agency  intruding  into  nature,  incompatible 
with  the  unity  of  nature  in  an  all-comprehending  system  and 
with  the  uniformity  and  continuity  of  its  course  of  development. 
The  objection  merely  unfolds  the  significance  of  M.  D’Azeglio’s 
witticism  :  “  Ah,  I  do  not  believe  in  them.  They  are  nothing 
but  celestial  coups  d'etat” 

The  general  answer  is  that  miracles  are  possible  if  God  exists. 
This  answer  is  forcibly  presented  by  J.  S.  Mill :  “In  order  that 
any  alleged  fact  should  be  contradictory  to  a  law  of  causation, 
the  allegation  must  be,  not  simply  that  the  cause  existed  without 
being  followed  by  the  effect,  for  that  would  be  no  uncommon 
occurrence  ;  but  that  this  happened  in  the  absence  of  any  coun¬ 
teracting  cause.  Now  in  the  case  of  an  alleged  miracle  the  asser¬ 
tion  is  the  exact  opposite  of  this.  It  is  that  the  effect  was  de- 


MIRACLES. 


477 


feated,  not  in  the  absence  but  in  consequence  of  a  counteracting 
cause,  namely,  a  direct  interposition  of  an  act  of  the  will  of  some 
being  who  has  power  over  nature  ;  and  in  particular  of  a  being, 
whose  will,  having  originally  endowed  all  the  causes  with  the 
powers  by  which  they  produce  their  effects,  may  well  be  sup¬ 
posed  able  to  counteract  them.  A  miracle  is  no  contradiction  to 
the  law  of  cause  and  effect ;  it  is  a  new  effect  supposed  to  be  pro¬ 
duced  by  the  introduction  of  a  new  cause.  Of  the  adequacy  of 
that  cause$  if  it  exist,  there  can  be  no  doubt ;  and  the  only  ante¬ 
cedent  improbability  which  can  be  ascribed  to  a  miracle  is  the 
improbability  that  any  such  being  had  existed  in  the  case.”  1  All 
which  Hume  makes  out  is,  that  no  evidence  can  prove  a  miracle 
to  one  who  does  not  already  believe  in  the  existence  of  God  and 
the  moral  or  supernatural  system.  This  belief  is  presupposed  in 
every  investigation  of  the  occurrence  of  miracles.  The  idea  of  a 
miracle  includes  the  idea  of  the  supernatural.  It  would  be  idle  to 
discuss  the  question  of  the  intervention  of  a  supernatural  power 
in  the  course  of  nature  with  one  who  has  no  belief  that  anv 
supernatural  power  exists.  In  the  preceding  investigations  we 
have  found  full  justification  of  our  belief  in  the  existence  of  God 
and  the  moral  or  supernatural  system.  With  this  attained  the 
possibility  of  miracles  is  assured  and  the  force  of  the  objection 
is  broken.  The  fallacy  of  the  objector  lies  in  his  recognition  of 
the  physical  system  alone.  As  Trench  represents  it,  he  is  like 
the  earth-born  giant,  the  Titan  Antaeus.  His  whole  strength 
depends  on  his  standing  on  the  earth.  The  moment  you  lift  him 
into  the  sphere  of  the  personal,  spiritual  and  supernatural,  to  the 
recognition  of  a  personal  God  and  a  moral  system,  his  strength 
is  gone.2  For  all  believers  in  the  existence  of  God  and  the  moral 
systehi,  this  answer  establishes  beyond  all  controversy  the  possi¬ 
bility  of  miracles.  The  objection  derives  all  its  force  from  the 
assumption  that  the  physical  system  is  the  only  and  all-compre¬ 
hending  system  of  the  universe. 

The  objection  now  recurs  in  a  new  form.  The  possibility  of 
miracles  being  admitted,  yet  if  God  should  work  a  miracle  or 
empower  any  finite  person  to  do  it,  the  act  would  be  an  interfer¬ 
ence  with  the  course  of  nature,  interrupting  its  uniformity  and 
continuity  in  the  unity  of  the  physical  system. 

To  the  objection  in  this  form  there  are  four  answers.  It  is 
founded  on  erroneous  ideas,  of  what  a  miracle  is  ;  of  what  God 
is ;  of  what  nature  is  ;  and  lastly,  of  what  the  universe  is. 

1  Logic,  bk.  iii.  ch;ip.  xxv.  §  2,  p.  376. 

2  Miracles,  Preliminary  Essay,  chap.  v.  4,  p.  62. 


478 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


The  first  answer  to  the  objection  as  now  urged  is  this  :  The 
objection  rests  on  an  erroneous  idea  of  what  a  miracle  is.  It  as¬ 
sumes  that  an  interruption  of  the  uniformity  and  continuity  of 
the  course  of  nature  is  of  the  essence  of  a  miracle.  On  the  con¬ 
trary  the  essence  of  a  miracle  consists  in  the  immediate  action  of 
a  rational  free  will  on  nature,  directing  its  physical  agencies  to 
the  effecting  of  results  which,  without  this  supernatural  direction, 
they  would  not  have  effected.  What  the  believer  in  miracles 
has  to  establish  is  that  such  supernatural  direction  of  the  forces 
of  nature  is  possible  without  interrupting  its  uniformity  and  con¬ 
tinuity.  A  rational  free  will,  if  it  exists,  is  supernatural ;  it  is 
a  power  above  nature.  It  belongs  to  the  rational  and  spiritual 
system,  not  to  the  physical.  Its  action  on  nature  is  from  above 
nature. 

Such  action  does  not  imply  the  introduction  of  any  new  phys¬ 
ical  agent  or  force  into  nature,  but  only  the  action  of  a  spiritual 
power  guiding  in  a  new  direction  physical  agents  and  forces  al¬ 
ready  existing,  so  that  they  cause  an  effect  different  from  what 
they  would  have  caused  without  the  spiritual  action.  A  phys¬ 
ical  force  acting  at  right  angles  to  another  is  said  neither  to  in¬ 
crease  nor  lessen  the  force  deflected.  This  may  help  us  to  con¬ 
ceive  of  the  possibility  of  directing  physical  forces  by  spiritual 
action. 

The  action  of  man’s  free  will  on  nature  is  the  same  in  essence 
with  what  we  call  miraculous.  Hence  Jacobi  and  others  have 
been  wont  to  call  man  a  miracle-worker.  If  a  man  by  an  act 
of  will  should  cause  a  physical  effect  a  mile  off  without  inter¬ 
mediate  physical  agency,  we  should  call  it  a  miracle.  Such  effects 
of  human  volition  we  are  not  accustomed  to  observe.  What  we 
observe,  when  man  by  his  action  modifies  the  action  of  phys¬ 
ical  forces,  is  itself  the  action  of  an  organized  body  on  material 
things.  Muscular  force  is  physical  force.  Such,  for  example,  is 
the  action  of  man  in  building  a  dam,  putting  in  machinery  and 
making  the  force  of  falling  water  grind  his  corn,  or  in  calling 
forth  and  directing  steam-power  by  an  engine,  or  electricity  by 
a  battery  and  wires.  The  really  miracle-working  power  of  the 
human  will  is  hidden  from  us  in  the  brain  and  the  nervous  sys¬ 
tem.  Physical  science  cannot  deny  that  this  power  is  there, 
because  it  declares  that  the  motion  of  the  molecules  of  the  brain 
cannot  be  transformed  into  thought  and  volition,  and  therefore 
cannot  cause  them.  It  is  the  manifestation  of  a  supernatural 
power  in  man,  a  power  which  cannot  be  defined  in  the  formulas 


MIRACLES. 


479 


of  mechanical  science,  which  physical  science  cannot  explain  or 
account  for,  which  physical  science  leaves  as  a  power  beyond 
and  above  nature.  This  action  of  man’s  will  continually  going 
on  is  in  its  essence  miraculous.  But  this  action  of  man’s  will 
on  nature  does  not  interrupt  the  uniformity  and  continuity  of 
nature  and  its  unity  in  the  physical  system.  It  does  not  inter¬ 
rupt  the  action  of  the  forces  of  nature  in  its  uniform  sequences 
of  cause  and  effect.  It  only  gives  the  physical  forces  a  new 
direction  and  thus  in  the  course  of  nature  and  through  its  forces 
produces  a  new  effect.  It  is  not  an  interruption  of  the  continuity 
of  nature,  but  rather  a  using  of  its  powers  in  accordance  with 
their  laws  by  a  higher  power  for  higher  and  rational  ends.  The 
will  of  man  can  do  this.  Much  more  may  the  will  of  God  act 
immediately  on  nature,  and  in  the  course  of  nature  and  through 
its  forces  accomplish  the  ends  of  his  eternal  love  and  wisdom, 
without  interrupting  its  uniformity  and  continuity,  or  its  unity 
in  the  physical  system.  A  miracle,  then,  involves  no  interrup¬ 
tion  of  laws  of  nature  other  than  is  equally  involved  in  effects 
caused  by  the  action  of  man’s  free  will. 

A  second  answer  is  that  the  objection  is  founded  on  an  erro¬ 
neous  idea  of  what  God  is.  It  assumes  that  God  is  a  capricious 
will  unregulated  by  reason.  It  regards  him  as  a  mere  almighti- 
ness  acting  in  no  accordance  with  law.  Hence  it  concludes  that 
his  action  must  be  without  continuity  and  uniformity,  and  there¬ 
fore  incompatible  with  the  unity  of  all  things  in  a  system.  It  rests 
on  a  superficial  philosophy,  the  falsity  of  which  has  already  been 
exposed,  which  accepts  as  an  axiom  that  order  and  law  prove  the 
absence  of  will.  But  in  truth  the  deepest  ground  of  continuity 
and  uniformity  in  the  unity  of  a  system  is  in  the  reign  of  reason. 
The  highest  conception  of  order  which  the  human  mind  can  at¬ 
tain  is  the  order  of  a  rational  system  in  which  a  rational  power 
is  expressing  the  archetypal  thoughts  of  reason,  in  accordance 
with  rational  law  and  for  the  progressive  realization  of  rational 
ends.  All  action  regulated  by  reason  will  have  unity  of  plan 
and  end,  and  continuity  and  uniformity  in  carrying  out  the  plan 
and  attaining  the  end.  As  Rothe  says,  the  phrase  “  laws  of  na¬ 
ture  ”  is  continually  presented  as  “  a  Medusa’s  head.”  But  the 
so-called  laws  of  nature  are  merely  observed  factual  sequences. 
The  name  “  laws  ”  can  be  applied  to  them  only  in  a  secondary  ap¬ 
plication.  The  word  law  has  its  primary  meaning  in  the  realm  of 
personality  as  imposing  obligation  on  free  personal  agents  to  act 
uniformly  and  continuously  in  accordance  with  the  truths,  laws, 


480 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


ideals  and  ends  of  reason.  The  principles  of  reason  regulating 
physical  force  are  the  laws  of  nature  in  their  true  and  deepest 
meaning.  The  sequences  have  come  to  be  called  laws,  because 
they  are  seen  to  reveal  in  nature  this  intelligent  and  rational 
regulation  by  a  power  above  nature.  God  is  not  a  capricious 
will.  He  is  the  absolute  Reason.  All  his  action  is  uniform  and 
continuous  in  the  unity  of  a  system,  progressively  realizing  his 
eternal  and  archetypal  thought  in  harmony  with  eternal  and  uni¬ 
versal  laws  of  reason.  The  universe  itself  in  its  development  is 
the  progressive  expression  of  the  thought  and  the  realization  of 
the  plan  of  God  in  his  eternal  love  and  wisdom.  The  uniform¬ 
ity  and  continuity  of  nature  have  their  ground  in  the  unchange¬ 
ableness  of  the  principles,  laws,  ideals  and  ends  of  reason.  God’s 
action  therefore  cannot  be  in  contravention  of  the  laws  of  na¬ 
ture.  And  this  is  no  new  idea.  It  is  as  old  as  Augustine.  He 
says  :  u  God  does  nothing  against  nature.  When  we  say  he  does 
so,  we  mean  that  he  does  something  against  nature  as  we  know 
it  —  in  its  familiar  and  ordinary  way.  But  against  the  highest 
laws  of  nature  he  no  more  acts  than  he  acts  against  himself.”  1 

A  third  answer  is  that  the  objection  rests  on  a  false  idea  of 
what  nature  or  the  physical  system  is.  It  assumes  that  nature 
is  a  closed  circuit ;  that  God  cannot  act  on  it  without  breaking  it 
up.  Nature  is  conceived  to  be  like  a  vessel  of  cast-iron ;  a  power 
that  modifies  it  breaks  it.  It  is  regarded  by  the  objector  as  a 
definite  amount  of  matter  and  force,  conceivable  as  so  many  tons 
and  foot-pounds,  combined  into  a  mechanism.  God  cannot  act  on 
or  through  it  without  interrupting  the  continuity  and  uniformity 
of  its  action,  and  perhaps  breaking  the  machinery  to  pieces. 

At  present  the  favorite  theory  of  physical  science  is  that  na¬ 
ture  is  a  mechanism.  But  a  machine,  when  in  action,  implies 
the  continuous  exertion  on  it  of  a  force  from  without,  causing  its 
motion  in  accordance  with  the  law  or  plan  of  its  construction. 
It  implies  a  mind  that  directed  its  construction.  It  implies  also 
a  mind  that  intelligently  applies  the  external  force  and  directs  its 
action  to  the  accomplishment  of  previously  planned  results.  But 
this  intelligent  application  and  direction  of  the  force  does  not  in¬ 
terrupt  the  uniformity  and  continuity  of  the  action  of  the  ma¬ 
chine  according  to  the  law  of  its  construction.  On  the  contrary, 
this  is  an  essential  presupposition  in  the  idea  and  plan  of  a  ma¬ 
chine  ;  for  if  there  were  no  application  of  external  force,  the  ma¬ 
chine  would  not  act,  and  therefore  could  not  have  any  continuity 

1  Contra  Faustum,  xxvi.  3. 


MIRACLES. 


481 


or  uniformity  of  action.  If  nature  is  a  machine,  the  fact  that 
there  is  an  intelligent  being  acting  on  and  through  it  from  with¬ 
out  and  directing  and  regulating  its  action  according  to  the  law 
and  design  of  the  machine,  implies  no  interruption  of  the  con¬ 
tinuity  and  uniformity  of  the  action  of  the  machine  according  to 
its  law. 

Nature  has  a  closer  analogy  with  an  organism  than  with  a  ma¬ 
chine.  But  an  organic  growth  is  possible  only  as  cosmic  agencies 
act  on  the  organism  from  without  and  supply  it  with  nutriment. 
This  also  may  be  directed  and  regulated  by  intelligence  so  as 
greatly  to  modify  it ;  as  a  gardener  modifies  by  culture  or  by 
grafting  the  flower  and  fruit  of  a  plant.  If  therefore  nature  is  an 
organism,  there  must  be  another  system  of  agencies  environing 
it,  acting  on  it  and  making  its  growth  and  development  possible. 
And  this  environment,  being  beyond  nature,  must  be  supernat¬ 
ural,  and  thus  supplies  the  intelligent  direction  and  regulation 
of  its  development.  And  the  action  of  this  environment  on  it  in¬ 
volves  no  interruption  of  the  uniformity  and  continuity  of  nature. 

Therefore,  in  any  possible  conception  of  nature,  it  necessarily 
implies  the  presence  and  action  on  it  of  a  supernatural  power 
continuously  supplying  and  intelligently  applying  and  directing 
the  energy  which  is  working  in  and  through  it.  Physical  science 
reveals  the  necessity  of  such  a  power,  but  cannot  discern  what  it 

is.  Theism  gives  the  explanation  by  declaring  that  it  is  the  God 
whom  all  men  grope  after  and  conceive  in  some  form  as  the  ob¬ 
ject  of  worship,  and  whom  theism  presents  as  the  absolute  Reason 
freely  energizing  in  nature  in  the  expression  of  rational  truth, 
in  accordance  with  rational  law,  for  the  realization  of  rational 
ends.  And  this  immanence  of  God  in  nature  and  his  action  on 
and  through  it  no  more  interrupt  its  order  and  law  than  the 
action  of  the  engineer  interrupts  the  order  and  law  of  the  engine 
or  than  that  of  the  gardener  interrupts  the  order  and  law  of  the 
growth  of  the  plant. 

The  necessity  of  such  a  supernatural  agency  is  disclosed  by 
physical  science  itself. 

Physical  science  rests  on  the  assumption  that  nature  is  orderly 
and  continuous  under  law.  Without  this  assumption  science  is 
impossible.  In  discussing  the  physico-theological  proof  it  was 
shown  that  science  itself  demands  the  existence  of  a  supernatural  a. 
power  as  the  ground  of  the  universe,  and  its  immanent  agency  in 

it,  as  the  only  rational  explanation  of  its  own  postulate  of  the 

law  of  continuity.  It  was  also  shown  that  physical  science  dis- 

31 


482 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


closes  facts  which,  so  far  as  it  can  discover,  are  contradictory  to 
the  law  of  continuity  and  can  be  harmonized  with  it  only  by  the 
recognition  of  God  immanent  and  energizing  in  nature.  It  was 
also  shown  that  the  appearance  of  life,  sensitivity  and  rational 
personality  constitute  epochs  in  the  evolution,  in  which  new  pow¬ 
ers  appear  and  begin  to  act.  These  new  powers  can  be  accounted 
for  only  by  the  recognition  of  God  immanent  and  energizing  in 
nature ;  otherwise  they  are  effects  without  a  cause.  Thus  phys¬ 
ical  science  discovers,  in  the  process  of  evolution,  changes  which 
have  all  the  essential  elements  of  epochal  miracles. 

The  necessary  conclusion  is  that  nature  is  not  a  closed  circuit, 
but  open  and  plastic  to  the  divine  action.  Since  the  spiritual  or 
supernatural  is  immanent  in  the  natural,  since  its  laws  underlie 
the  laws  of  nature  and  are  revealed  in  them,  a  miracle  is  not 
only  possible  to  almighty  power,  but  also  possible  to  it  working 
in  wisdom  and  love  in  harmony  with  reason,  without  interrupt¬ 
ing  the  continuity,  uniformity  and  unity  of  the  physical  system. 
In  fact  we  have  found  that  there  is  in  the  course  of  nature  con¬ 
tinuous  divine  action  having  the  essential  characteristic  of  the 
miraculous  ;  that  is,  the  action  of  a  supernatural  will,  other  than 
man’s,  causing  effects  in  nature  which  its  physical  forces  with¬ 
out  extraneous  direction  would  never  have  effected.  Thus,  when 
nature  is  seen  in  its  deepest  significance,  the  miraculous  is  the 
law  of  nature  rather  than  the  exception  to  it,  the  ordinary  rather 
than  the  extraordinary.  u  In  God  we  live,  and  move,  and  have 
our  being.”  And  the  miraculous,  instead  of  being  an  interruption 
of  the  course  of  nature,  is  found  to  be  the  indispensable  ground 
of  the  possibility  of  the  continuity,  uniformity  and  unity  of  the 
physical  system. 

The  Bible  says  that  God  created  by  his  word.  This  gives  a 
basis  for  a  legitimate  analogy.  In  the  universe  God  is  progres¬ 
sively  expressing  his  eternal  and  archetypal  thought.  Worlds  and 
systems  are  the  words  in  which  he  is  expressing  it.  Hence  men 
properly  speak  of  the  Book  of  Nature.  The  continuity  and  uni¬ 
formity  of  nature  and  its  unity  in  a  system  are  analogous  to  the 
continuity,  uniformity  and  unity  of  an  author’s  thought  in  writing 
a  book.  He  is  progressively  expressing  it.  The  letters,  words  and 
sentences  vary.  But  through  this  variation,  ordering  and  control¬ 
ling  it,  runs  one  uniform  and  continuous  course  of  thought  in  the 
unity  of  a  system  or  plan.  So  God  is  progressively  expressing  his 
archetypal  thought  in  the  successive  words,  sentences  and  chap* 
ters  of  the  never  completed  Book  of  Nature. 


MIRACLES. 


483 


This  conclusion  becomes  more  evident  if  we  revert  to  the  fact 
that  the  invariable  uniformity  and  continuity  of  nature  cannot 
be  known  by  observation  and  experience ;  these  can  never  com¬ 
pass  the  universal.  The  law  of  the  uniformity  and  continuity  of 
nature  is  a  principle  of  reason,  regulative  of  all  thinking.  It  de¬ 
clares  simply  that  the  same  complex  of  causes  must  always  cause 
the  same  effect.  It  does  not  declare  that  any  observed  complex 
of  causes  has  always  existed  or  will  always  exist.  A  certain  com¬ 
plex  of  causes  effects  the  rotation  of  the  earth  on  its  axis  and 
the  alternation  of  day  and  night.  But  the  rotation  of  the  earth 
once  began  and  sometime  will  cease.  This  principle  may  be  as 
applicable  to  molecules  as  to  masses.  Materialists  maintain  that 
the  molecules,  or  at  least  the  ultimate  atoms  supposed  to  com¬ 
pose  them,  are  infrangible,  unchangeable  and  eternal.  But  it 
may  be  that  instead  of  having  reached  in  these  the  ultimate,  mat¬ 
ter  may  have  existed  in  some  previous  condition  entirely  beyond 
our  observation.  Conjectures  of  such  existence  are  familiar  to  sci¬ 
ence.1  It  is  as  reasonable  that  the  molecules  may  have  existed 
under  different  conditions  and  in  different  forms  as  that  the  sun 
and  planets  have  so  existed.  The  search  by  physical  science  to 
ascertain  in  what  previous  forms  and  conditions  matter  has  for¬ 
merly  existed  is  legitimate,  so  long  as  it  is  confined  to  the  inves¬ 
tigation  of  facts  and  inferences  from  them.  The  position  of  the 
materialist,  that  matter,  in  the  forms  and  conditions  in  which  we 
know  it  by  the  senses,  is  eternal,  has  no  warrant  either  in  phys¬ 
ical  science  or  in  philosophy. 

The  objection  to  miracles  which  we  are  now  considering  rests 
on  this  materialistic  assumption.  It  supposes  nature  to  be  a  closed 
circuit,  a  finished  and  self-moving  mechanism,  admitting  no  inter¬ 
vention  of  a  power  from  without.  This  implies  that  nature  as  we 
know  it,  with  all  its  observed  factual  sequences,  is  eternal.  The 
objection  brings  us  squarely  to  this  alternative  :  shall  we  retain 
this  rigid  conception  of  the  physical  system,  contradictory  alike 
to  physical  science  and  to  philosophy,  and  give  up  the  possibility 
of  the  miraculous  in  its  essential  significance,  or  shall  we  modify 
this  rigid  conception  of  matter  and  of  the  physical  system  and 
believe  in  the  possibility  of  the  miraculous  in  its  essential  sig¬ 
nificance  ?  If  we  accept  the  latter,  the  rational  principle  of  the 
unity,  continuit}r  and  uniformity  of  nature  remains  unchanged 
and  universally  regulative  forever,  but  with  variability  of  factual 
sequences  in  entire  consistency  with  it.  Certainly  the  only  rea- 
1  Phil.  Basis  of  Theism,  pp.  413,  416-418,  495-497. 


484 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


sonable  decision  is,  that  we  must  modify  the  rigid  and  narrow 
conception  of  matter  and  the  physical  system  and  acknowledge 
that  the  material  system,  as  the  progressive  expression  of  the 
archetypal  thought  of  the  absolute  Reason,  is  always  plastic  to 
its  creator’s  power,  and  yet  always  unchanging  in  its  unity,  uni¬ 
formity  and  continuity  as  regulated  in  conformity  with  the  prin¬ 
ciples  and  laws  of  reason  and  for  the  realization  of  rational  ends. 
It  is  unchanging  in  unity,  uniformity  and  continuity  as  the  pro¬ 
gressive  expression  of  unchanging  wisdom  and  love,  with  vari¬ 
ability  of  factual  sequences,  in  adaptation  to  new  developments 
of  the  archetypal  plan  and  preparing  for  still  higher  stages  in  its 
progressive  realization. 

A  fourth  answer  remains  to  be  considered.  The  objection  rests 
on  a  false  idea  of  what  the  universe  is.  It  assumes  that  the  phys¬ 
ical  system  is  the  only  and  all-comprehending  system  and  that  no 
spiritual  system  exists.  It  necessarily  follows  that  the  only  laws 
in  the  universe  are  the  mere  factual  sequences  observecf  in  nature. 
Thus  the  very  idea  of  law  in  its  true  significance  to  the  reason  is 
lost,  and  the  universe  is  known  as  going  on  necessarily  and  for¬ 
ever  merely  in  the  factual  sequences  of  physical  cause  and  effect. 
This  shuts  out  God  as  really  as  miracles.  It  shuts  out  all  ration¬ 
ality  and  freedom  as  really  as  it  shuts  out  God. 

Here  again  the  objection  is  founded  on  a  falsity.  There  is  also 
a  spiritual  system  consisting  of  personal  beings  capable  of  know¬ 
ing  God,  subjects  of  his  law  and  government,  objects  of  his  loving 
care,  capable  of  trusting  and  serving  him  and  of  communing  with 
him,  capable  of  spiritual  perfection  and  blessedness,  and  so  pre¬ 
senting  an  end  to  be  attained  in  the  universe  transcending  the 
physical  system  and  worthy  of  God.  That  this  system  exists  we 
know  in  our  knowledge  of  ourselves,  of  our  fellow-men  and  of 
God. 

The  spiritual  system  and  the  physical  are  not  in  antagonism 
nor  existing  apart,  but  are  in  intimate  interaction  and  close  corre¬ 
spondence.  The  physical  system  is  the  expression  of  thought;  and 
physical  science  consists  in  reading  and  formulating  the  thought 
which  it  expresses.  But  the  thought  imprinted  in  it  comes  from 
the  rational  or  spiritual  sphere.  The  factual  sequences,  which 
we  call  laws  of  nature,  are  revelations  of  the  continuity  and  uni¬ 
formity  of  the  action  of  power  regulated  by  the  divine  Reason 
in  executing  the  plans  of  perfect  wisdom  and  love.  Therefore  it 
is  not  physical  laws  which  are  carried  over  into  the  spiritual,  but 
it  is  the  spiritual  laws  which  are  carried  over  into  the  physical 


MIRACLES. 


485 


and  reveal  themselves  in  the  laws  of  nature.  And  the  phys- 
ical  forces  acting  in  their  factual  sequences  may  he  held  in  abey¬ 
ance  in  the  presence  of  a  spiritual  power  acting  according  to 
these  higher  laws.  This  would  be  analogous  to  mechanical  force 
held  in  abeyance  in  the  presence  of  chemical  affinity,  and  chem¬ 
ical  force  held  in  abeyance  in  the  presence  of  life.  The  physical 
system  is  also  subordinate  to  the  spiritual.  It  gives  the  theatre 
in  which  spiritual  beings  live  and  act,  the  media  through  which 
they  reveal  themselves,  the  agencies  and  instruments  through 
which  they  act.  The  ends  for  which  nature  exists  are  not  in 
itself  but  in  the  spiritual  sphere  beyond.  Nature  always  points, 
to  something  beyond  itself,  backward  to  a  cause,  above  to  a  law, 
and  forward  to  ends  in  the  spiritual  system.  God  is  always 
developing  nature  to  a  capacity  to  be  receptive  of  higher  pow¬ 
ers.  Under  the  tension  of  the  divine  energy  in  it,  it  always 
seems  to  be  “striving  its  bounds  to  overpass.”  This  discloses  in 
nature  a  certain  reality  underlying  Hegel’s  conception,  that  na¬ 
ture  is  always  aspiring  to  return  to  the  spiritual  whence  it  came. 
Nature  is  also  full  of  final  causes;  yet  these  point,  beyond  the 
contrivance  effecting  a  mechanical  result,  to  ultimate  ends  in  the 
spiritual  sphere.  No  end  for  the  existence  of  nature  can  even 
be  imagined  in  nature  itself.  There  can  be  no  end  in  the  violin 
for  the  music  drawn  from  its  strings.  There  can  be  no  end  in  a 
house  for  the  architectural  skill  with  which  it  is  constructed,  nor 
in  the  marble  for  the  beauty  into  which  it  is  chiseled.  Even 
what  in  its  relation  to  nature  alone  seems  faulty  may  be  occasion 
of  good  in  the  spiritual  sphere.  We  ask  for  what  purpose  the 
enormous  store  of  energy  in  the  physical  universe  was  created.  If 
we  seek  the  answer  in  the  physical  sphere  exclusively,  one  inevi¬ 
table  answer  is :  “  In  order  that  something  less  than  a  billionth 
part  of  the  sun’s  energy  might  be  utilized  by  ourselves,  while  the 
remainder  is  carried  off  into  space  and  appears  again  no  more.” 
But  looking  at  this  waste  in  view  of  the  spiritual  system,  Balfour 
Stewart  asks  :  “  Is  it  not  rather  meant  to  teach  us  that  the  things 
which  are  seen  are  temporal,  by  means  of  a  celestial  handwriting 
in  the  largest  possible  characters  ?  ”  So  intimate  is  the  connec¬ 
tion  of  the  two  systems,  so  close  the  correspondence,  that  poets 
find  in  nature  the  imagery  in  which  they  best  reveal  the  creations 
of  their  genius,  and  Christ  found  in  nature  the  parables  which 
best  disclose  the  realities  of  the  spiritual  world.  The  physical  is 
from,  by  and  for  the  spiritual. 

We  infer,  then,  not  merely  that  miracles  are  possible  because 


486 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


there  is  a  God,  but  that  they  are  probable  as  meeting  exigencies 
and  accomplishing  ends  beyond  the  physical  in  the  spiritual  sys¬ 
tem.  And  on  account  of  the  intimacy  and  interaction  of  the  two 
systems,  miracles  are  possible  without  breaking  the  continuity, 
uniformity  and  unity  of  nature,  any  more  than  Franklin  broke 
them  when  by  his  kite  he  drew  the  lightning  from  the  heavens, 
or  any  electrician  when  he  sets  up  his  battery  and  evokes  the 
electricity  from  the  continuity  of  its  silent  and  unseen  course. 
In  a  miracle  a  spiritual  power  reveals  itself  in  the  physical  sys¬ 
tem  while  in  the  act  of  effecting  a  higher  result  in  the  spiritual 
system. 

We  see  then  that  nature  is  not  the  only  and  all-comprehending 
system.  The  vaster  spiritual  system  encompasses  and  permeates 
the  natural  as  the  ocean  encompasses  and  permeates  its  own  cur¬ 
rents.  The  current  has  its  own  limits,  course  and  laws ;  but  it 
is  also  subject  to  the  law  of  the  ocean  in  which  it  moves  and  a 
part  of  which  it  is.  It  heaves  with  the  ocean’s  billows  ;  the  swell 
of  distant  storms  sweeps  across  it ;  the  ocean  tides,  raised  by 
heavenly  attraction,  rise  and  fall  in  it.  These  effects  are  inex¬ 
plicable  and  incredible  to  one  whose  knowledge  is  limited  to  the 
current,  but  simple  and  intelligible  when  considered  as  manifest¬ 
ing  the  power  of  the  ocean  in  which  the  current  moves.  So  the 
course  of  nature  is  a  current  in  the  ocean  of  God’s  universal  ac¬ 
tion.  If  miracles  sweep  across  it  and  tides  of  heavenly  influence 
swell  within  it,  though  transcending  its  laws  and  inexplicable  to 
one  who  sees  only  its  narrow  and  uniform  flow,  yet  are  they  re¬ 
sults  of  agencies  from  an  encompassing  and  permeating  system 
acting  according  to  broader  laws,  and  sweeping  across  the  nar¬ 
rower  stream  of  the  physical  and  the  temporal.  To  higher  intel¬ 
ligences  they  do  not  interrupt  the  law  of  nature  but  reveal  the 
universal  law  which  is  “  the  harmony  of  the  universe.”  To  their 
insight  the  course  of  time  flows  in  the  midst  of  the  eternal,  the 
physical  is  environed  and  permeated  by  the  spiritual,  the  natural 
by  the  supernatural,  the  finite  and  conditioned  by  the  infinite  and 
the  absolute. 

III.  Miracles  epochal  in  the  spiritual  and  the  phys¬ 
ical  systems.  —  Miracles  are  essential  at  epochs  both  in  the  evo¬ 
lution  of  the  physical  system  and  in  the  progress  of  man  in  the 
spiritual  system. 

Here  the  objection  recurs  in  another  form.  Admitting  the 
existence  of  God  and  the  spiritual  system,  still  the  action  of  God 
in  harmony  with  perfect  reason  must  be  uniform  and  continuous., 


MIRACLES. 


487 


and  a  miracle  would  be  an  interruption  of  this  continuity.  By 
working  a  miracle  God  would  interrupt  and  contradict  himself. 
A  miracle  would  imply  some  failure  of  the  divine  action  to  bring 
to  pass  the  intended  effect,  some  discovery  of  a  defect  in  the 
original  plan  or  inefficiency  of  the  energy  exerted  to  carry  it 
through.  A  miracle  would  then  be  an  act  of  God  to  correct  a 
mistake,  to  mend  a  break  or  to  make  up  for  a  failure.  It  there¬ 
fore  would  be  incompatible  with  the  essential  idea  of  God,  the 
absolute  Spirit,  perpetually  revealing  the  thought  of  his  reason 
in  accordance  with  its  unchanging  laws  in  the  action  of  perfect 
wisdom  and  love.  The  objection  in  this  form  is  urged  by  Theo¬ 
dore  Parker,  F.  W.  Newman  and  others. 

The  general  answer  is  that  miracles  are  not  wrought  to  mend 
breaks,  correct  mistakes  or  to  make  up  for  failures,  but  are 
epochal,  or  at  least  incidental,  in  the  evolution  of  the  universe 
and  the  progressive  realization  of  its  archetypal  plan. 

The  objection,  in  the  form  now  under  consideration,  rests  on 
the  false  assumption  that  every  miracle  is  an  event  entirely  iso¬ 
lated.  This  implies  that  it  has  no  unity  with  other  events  in  the 
universal  system  and  no  intrinsic  connection  with  its  progressive 
development ;  and  that  it  has  no  design  but  to  excite  the  wonder 
of  the  observers  and  to  accredit  the  miracle-worker  as  a  messen¬ 
ger  from  God.  This  is  the  conception  of  Hobbes  in  his  witti¬ 
cism  in  the  Leviathan,  that  miracles  are  like  pills  which  must  be 
swallowed  whole  without  chewing.  The  same  must  be  the  concep¬ 
tion  of  Matthew  Arnold  who,  in  the  chapter  on  miracles  in  Liter¬ 
ature  and  Dogma,  selects  as  a  type  of  all  miracles  the  conversion 
of  a  pen  into  a  pen-wiper.  From  this  conception  his  inference  is 
true  enough :  “  Suppose  I  could  change  the  pen  with  which  I 
write  into  a  pen-wiper,  I  should  not  thus  make  what  I  write  any 
the  truer  or  more  convincing.”  Such  are  not  the  Christian  mir¬ 
acles  ;  but  are  rather  miracles  of  the  kind  which  the  Jews  asked 
for  and  Jesus  refused.  It  must  be  admitted,  however,  that  some 
defenders  of  Christianity  have  had  onl}r  this  conception  of  a  mir¬ 
acle  and  thus  have  opened  their  defenses  to  successful  assault. 
The  answer  to  the  objection  is,  that  miracles  are  not  isolated 
events,  but  are  included  in  the  archetypal  plan  of  the  universe, 
are  subordinate  to  its  archetypal  end  and  essential  in  its  normal 
development.  Hence  in  working  a  miracle  God  does  not  inter¬ 
rupt  the  continuity  and  uniformity  of  his  action  in  progressively 
realizing  the  archetypal  plan  of  perfect  reason,  and  does  not  con¬ 
tradict  himself. 


488 


THE  SELF-RE YELATION  OF  GOD. 


In  the  first  place,  this  form  of  the  objection  is  already  an¬ 
swered  in  the  answers  to  its  other  forms.  If  the  physical  system 
is  not  alone,  if  there  is  a  God  and  a  spiritual  system,  if  the  spir¬ 
itual  environs  and  permeates  the  physical,  if  they  are  not  in  an¬ 
tagonism  but  in  harmony,  if  the  thought,  law  and  order  of  the 
spiritual  find  expression  and  its  ends  are  subserved  in  the  phys¬ 
ical,  if  the  physical  system  is  from,  by  and  for  the  spiritual,  then 
God  immanent  in  the  universe  may  cause  in  nature  effects  which 
we  call  miraculous  without  interrupting  the  uniformity  and  con¬ 
tinuity  of  his  own  action  in  realizing  the  plan  of  his  eternal  love 
and  wisdom. 

In  the  second  place,  it  is  not  true  that  miracles  are  occasioned 
by  defect,  mistake  or  failure.  The  truth  is  that  they  are  essen¬ 
tial  in  the  progressive  development  of  the  plan  of  the  absolute 
Reason.  They  mark  the  epochs  in  its  progress  both  in  the  phys¬ 
ical  system  and  in  the  spiritual.  The  infinite  cannot  at  any  point 
of  time  be  completely  revealed  in  the  finite.  As  the  revelation 
of  God,  the  universe  must  be  endlessly  progressive.  Incidental 
to  this  progressiveness  there  must  be  epochs  in  which  powers 
and  agencies  of  the  spiritual  are  manifested  in  the  natural,  higher 
than  any  that  have  ever  appeared  before.  This  implies  no  sup¬ 
plying  of  a  newly  discovered  defect,  no  mending  or  correcting, 
no  interruption  of  the  uniformity  and  continuity  of  the  action, 
no  departure  from  the  unity  of  the  system,  but  only  its  progres¬ 
sive  and  orderly  development. 

This  progressive  development  we  trace  through  the  physical 
system  to  the  spiritual ;  thence  onward  in  higher  and  higher  de¬ 
velopment  of  the  spiritual.  They  constitute  together  one  un¬ 
comprehending  system  in  which  God  is  continuously  and  pro¬ 
gressively  revealing  himself. 

In  the  evolution  of  the  physical  system  matter  becomes  fitted 
to  be  the  medium  for  the  manifestation  of  a  higher  energy.  God 
infuses  this  higher  energy  into  nature  so  soon  as  at  any  point  it 
has  become  capable  of  receiving  and  manifesting  it.  Then  be¬ 
ings  of  a  higher  order,  and  a  higher  plane  of  existence  and  action 
appear.  The  evolution  is  thus  marked  by  epochs. 

In  this  evolution  of  the  physical  system,  so  far  as  it  has  taken 
place  on  this  earth,  four  great  epochs  are  noticeable.  As  we  do 
not  suppose  the  formation  of  this  earth  was  the  beginning  of 
God’s  revelation  of  himself  in  and  through  the  finite,  we  may 
assume  the  primitive  stuff,  the  homogeneous,  the  nebulous  mat¬ 
ter,  the  primitive  fluid,  or  by  whatever  name  called,  as  already 


MIRACLES. 


489 


created.  Then  we  find  four  epochs.  The  first  is  the  beginning 
of  motion.  The  second  is  the  beginning  of  life.  The  third  is 
the  beginning  of  sensitivity.  The  fourth  is  the  beginning  of  ra¬ 
tional  free  personality  in  man.  In  the  production  of  man  the 
process  of  the  physical  evolution  on  the  earth  reaches  its  consum¬ 
mation.  The  zoological  process  is  consummated  and  the  psycho¬ 
logical  and  spiritual  process  begins.  There  is  not  to  be  the 
genesis  of  a  higher  species  but  the  educating,  civilizing  and  per¬ 
fecting  of  man.  Thus  the  physical  evolution  has  reached  its 
destined  goal  and  consummation  in  the  appearance  of  rational 
free  personality  in  man.1 

Where  the  evolution  of  the  physical  system  ends  the  progress 
of  the  rational,  moral  and  spiritual  system  begins.  Nature  itself 
has  carried  us  upward  to  the  supernatural.  This  progressive  de¬ 
velopment  we  have  traced  through  the  physical  system  to  the 
spiritual.  Thence  we  trace  it  onward  and  upward  through  higher 
and  higher  developments  of  the  spiritual  system. 

In  the  history  of  man  as  revealed  in  Christianity  there  are  three 
great  epochs  :  the  creation  of  man  ;  the  coming  of  God  in  Christ 
reconciling  the  world  unto  himself  and  in  the  Holy  Spirit  estab¬ 
lishing  his  kingdom  of  righteousness  on  earth ;  and  the  consum¬ 
mation  of  man’s  earthly  history  in  Christ’s  second  coming,  dis¬ 
closing  in  judgment  the  final  issues  of  man’s  spiritual  history 
during  the  whole  period  of  the  existence  of  the  race  in  its  natural 
life  on  earth,  and  raising  him  to  a  higher  plane  of  existence.  As 
the  evolution  of  the  natural  carries  us  up  to  the  personal,  the 
spiritual,  the  supernatural,  so  the  progress  of  the  spiritual  carries 
us  up  to  the  life  which  is  heavenly  and  eternal. 

Besides  these  three,  Christianity  recognizes  other  stages  of 
progress  which  constitute  epochs,  and  are  intermediate  and  less 
distinctly  marked.  Some  of  these  are  noticeable  in  the  history 
of  God’s  revelation  of  himself  before  Christ’s  coming. 

It  is  asserted  that  the  criticism  of  the  Old  Testament  has 
proved  that  the  Israelites,  in  all  the  earlier  centuries  of  their  his¬ 
tory,  knew  nothing  of  monotheism,  and  that  their  religion  was 
fetichism  or  some  very  low  form  of  heathenism.  Some  even  speak 
of  the  effrontery  of  Christian  scholars  in  daring  to  maintain  that 
monotheistic  ideas  were  known  in  Israel.  But  the  examination 
of  their  arguments  seem  to  me  rather  to  prove  than  to  disprove 
the  knowledge  of  the  one  God.  For  example,  they  commonly 
argue  from  Abraham’s  proposed  sacrifice  of  Isaac  that  the  re- 
1  The  Destiny  of  Man,  by  John  Fiske,  pp.  30,  31. 


490 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


ligion  required  human  sacrifices.  They  coolly  overlook  the  fact 
that,  according  to  the  narrative  itself,  the  human  sacrifice  is  for¬ 
bidden.  They  argue  from  the  facts  that  the  most  of  the  ten 
commandments  were  known  in  Egypt,  and  that  some  of  the 
Mosaic  usages  and  institutions  resembled  those  of  Egypt,  that 
therefore  Exodus  is  not  historically  credible.  When  it  is  replied 
that  this  confirms  its  credibility,  it  is  quietly  replied  that  this 
knowledge  of  Egypt  may  have  begun  centuries  later,  in  the  time 
of  the  kings.  Other  arguments  doing  equal  violence  to  the  narra¬ 
tive  are  common. 

The  Old  Testament  itself  purports  to  be  the  history  of  the 
education  of  a  people,  called  out  of  idolatry  and  still  surrounded 
by  it,  in  the  knowledge  of  the  one  true  God.  It  presents  to  us 
a  people  steeped  in  the  spirit  of  idolatry  and,  in  spite  of  all  in¬ 
fluences  to  the  contrary,  often  relapsing  into  it.  It  discloses  the 
difficulty  of  educating  them  and  the  slow  and  faltering  progress 
which  they  made  to  the  knowledge  of  the  true  God.  It  also  dis¬ 
closes  the  presence  of  that  higher  knowledge  of  God  from  the 
beginning  of  the  history  and  the  earnest  inculcation  of  it  by  the 
more  enlightened  minds.  It  discloses  the  presence  and  agency 
of  a  supernatural  power  from  the  beginning,  and  thus  gives  con¬ 
sistency  to  the  Old  Testament  and  is  an  internal  evidence  of  its 
historical  credibility.  Mr.  Spencer  says  it  is  impossible  for  a 
rude  people  in  the  earlier  stages  of  development  to  receive  the 
ideas  of  a  later  and  higher  civilization.  This  is  exemplified  in 
the  slowness  and  difficulty  of  training  Israel  in  the  knowledge  of 
God,  as  narrated  in  the  Old  Testament.  On  the  other  hand  the 
facts  that  the  higher  ideas  were  present  in  the  minds  of  some, 
that  they  were  inculcated  in  teaching,  embodied  in  laws,  or¬ 
ganized  in  ritual  and  institutions,  however  imperfectly,  prove 
that  this  higher  knowledge  was  not  the  result  of  natural  develop¬ 
ment  but  of  supernatural  influence.  The  life  of  Israel  is  always 
gravitating  toward  idolatry.  The  literature  of  Israel  is  always 
pointing  to  the  one  God,  to  the  moral  requirements  of  his  law,  and 
the  value  of  the  service  of  the  heart  and  the  obedience  of  the  life 
above  all  lip-service  and  sacrifice.  And  it  gradually  opens  the 
outlook  of  prophecy  and  promise  to  the  transition  of  the  kingdom 
of  God  into  a  universal  kingdom  of  righteousness  and  good-will 
in  the  Messianic  tiAes.  The  literature  of  a  people  is  commonly 
the  outgrowth  and  revelation  of  its  life.  Plainly  the  literature 
of  Israel  is  not  the  outgrowth  and  revelation  of  its  natural  life 
and  development.  It  is  the  revelation  of  a  light  and  power  above 


MIRACLES. 


491 


that  natural  life,  educating  and  directing  the  people  to  higher 
and  spiritual  ideas  and  ends.  This  gives  consistency  and  credi¬ 
bility  to  the  history  recorded  in  the  Old  Testament.  The  argu¬ 
ments  against  its  general  historical  credibility  derive  their  force 
largely  from  the  foregone  conclusion  that  such  supernatural  influ¬ 
ence,  direction  and  education  are  impossible. 

In  this  preparatory  period  we  find  the  continuity  of  the  king¬ 
dom  of  God  and  of  his  redemptive  work  among  men  advancing 
through  successive  subordinate  epochs  or  stages  to  the  coming  of 
Christ. 

One  of  these  is  the  first  distinct  historical  appearance  of  a 
kingdom  of  God  on  earth.  They  who  yield  to  God’s  gracious 
drawing,  return  to  him  in  loyal  trust  and  service  and  become  the 
willing  recipients  of  his  seeking  and  waiting  grace,  are  reunited 
with  him  in  the  new  life  of  faith  and  love  and  constitute  a  people 
or  kingdom  of  God  on  earth.  The  first  distinct  historical  appear¬ 
ance  of  this  people  or  kingdom  of  God  is  in  the  call  of  Abraham. 
Worshipers  of  God  had  existed  before,  but  we  have  no  clear  his¬ 
torical  knowledge  of  a  people  separated  and  distinct  as  a  people 
of  God.  As  the  state  had  its  beginning  in  the  family,  the  church 
had  its  beginning  in  the  same.  Abraham,  yielding  to  the  divine 
seeking  and  drawing,  comes  out  from  idolatry  and  idol-worshipers, 
in  trust  and  service  of  the  true  God.  In  his  attempted  sacrifice 
of  Isaac  he  is  instructed  that  the  offering  of  human  sacrifices 
practised  among  other  peoples  to  propitiate  the  divinity,  is  not 
permitted  in  the  worship  of  the  true  God  ;  that  God  himself  will 
provide  the  sacrifice,  and  that  what  is  required  of  the  worshiper  is 
loyal  trust,  obedience  and  service.  It  is  the  beginning  of  the 
teaching,  more  fully  unfolded  afterwards,  that  the  sacrifice  which 
man  is  to  provide  is  a  broken  and  contrite  heart.  Here  is  the 
first  clear  historical  notice  of  the  beginning  of  the  kingdom  of 
God  on  earth,  consisting  of  a  distinct  people,  reunited  with  God 
and  recipients  of  his  grace  through  their  faith  or  trust  in  him 
and  their  willing  obedience  and  service.  This  is  the  kingdom 
of  God  on  earth,  which  abides  forever,  and  the  progress  of  which 
gives  the  deepest  significance  to  human  history. 

Another  intermediate  epoch  is  the  deliverance  of  the  people 
from  Egypt,  and  the  formal  institution  at  Sinai  of  their  political 
and  ecclesiastial  organization  under  the  government  of  Jehovah, 
and  on  the  basis  of  loyal  trust  and  allegiance  and  of  righteous 
life  as  declared  in  the  ten  commandments. 

Here  also  the  gift  of  prophecy  must  be  noticed.  The  gift  of 


492 


THE  SELF-RE YELATION  OF  GOD. 


prophecy  appears  in  the  time  of  the  patriarchs  and  of  Moses. 
More  distinctly  the  prophetic  office  is  recognized  in  Samuel's 
time.  It  existed  through  the  whole  period  of  the  kings  and  con¬ 
stituted  one  of  its  striking  characteristics.  It  reaches  its  most 
remarkable  development  in  Elijah  and  Elisha  and  in  the  proph¬ 
ets  whose  writings  appear  in  the  Christian  Scriptures.  While 
prophecy  is  not  epochal  as  marking  a  point  of  time  by  its  origin, 
it  is  so  as  a  divine  power  entering  into  the  course  of  human  his¬ 
tory.  In  its  essential  meaning,  as  the  direct  communication  of 
God  with  a  human  spirit  and  the  testimony  of  one  whose  heart 
God  has  touched  to  what  he  knows  of  God  through  his  expe¬ 
rience  of  the  divine  influence  in  his  own  soul,  it  remains  a  power 
♦  in  human  history  through  all  time. 

Thus  we  find  in  the  history  of  the  earth  a  continuous  progress 
marked  by  epochs.  It  is  first  the  evolution  of  the  physical  sys¬ 
tem  through  successive  epochs  to  the  appearance  of  the  spiritual 
system.  Then  it  is  continued  in  the  advancement  of  the  spirit¬ 
ual  system  through  successive  epochs  to  the  final  consummation 
of  man’s  history  in  “  the  new  heavens  and  the  new  earth  wherein 
dwelleth  righteousness.” 

In  each  of  these  epochs  in  the  physical  system,  the  bringing  in 
of  the  higher  beings  and  the  higher  plane  of  existence  involves 
all  which  is  essential  in  the  miraculous.  Otherwise  the  lower 
produces  the  higher;  that  is,  there  would  be  an  effect  without 
a  cause.  And  each  epoch  is  the  introduction  of  new  invariable 
factual  sequences  or  secondary  laws  of  nature,  and  therein  of  a 
new  range  and  higher  manifestation  of  the  course  or  order  of 
nature. 

Analogous  to  these  are  the  epochs  in  the  spiritual  system. 
They  introduce  higher  spiritual  energies  and  a  course  and  order 
of  spiritual  activities  which  had  not  appeared  before.  And  as  in 
nature  so  in  the  spiritual  sphere,  the  higher  power  of  God  intro¬ 
duced  miraculously  into  human  history  in  one  of  these  epochs, 
remains  and  continuously  exerts  its  energies  in  humanity  to  pre¬ 
pare  for  a  greater  epoch  and  a  higher  plane  of  spiritual  life. 
The  revelation  to  Abraham  of  God  in  covenant  with  a  people 
that  trust  him  as  their  God,  remains  a  permanent  possession  of 
mankind  and  a  permanent  power  of  spiritual  elevation  and  prog¬ 
ress.  The  kingdom  of  God  on  earth,  organized  under  Moses 
under  a  covenant  of  righteousness,  continues  among  men  in  vary¬ 
ing  forms  and  works  for  righteousness  to  the  end  of  the  earthly 
history  of  man.  The  spirit  of  prophecy,  in  its  broadest  sense  as 


MIRACLES. 


493 


the  communication  of  God’s  grace  within  the  experience  of  the 
individual  enabling  him  to  testify  what  he  has  learned  from  God 
within  the  secrecy  of  his  own  soul,  is  a  power  in  the  kingdom  of 
God  forever.  And  all  that  divine,  gracious  and  redeeming  en¬ 
ergy,  which  came  into  humanity  in  Christ  and  was  made  spiritual 
and  universal  in  the  descent  of  the  Spirit,  abides  with  us  forever. 
This  is  analogous  to  the  epochs  in  the  evolution  of  nature.  The 
first  sensitive  cell  which  appeared  on  the  earth  was  the  coming 
into  nature  of  a  power  which  was  never  to  cease  to  modify  and 
elevate  it.  When  the  first  rational  man  appeared,  it  was  the 
coming  into  nature  of  a  lord  of  nature,  who  was  to  use  its  forces 
and  its  treasures,  and  to  modify  the  earth  itself  and  subdue  and 
civilize  it. 

And  man  himself  is  to  be  educated  and  developed  and  the 
spiritual  system  to  be  advanced  from  epoch  to  epoch,  like  a 
growing  plant.  Our  Lord  himself  compares  his  kingdom  to  the 
corn  growing  through  successive  epochs ;  first  the  blade,  then  the 
ear,  after  that  the  full  corn  in  the  ear.  As  matter  must  be  pre¬ 
pared  to  be  a  medium  for  manifesting  a  higher  form  of  energy, 
so  in  the  spiritual  system  man  must  be  educated  and  developed 
to  receptivity  for  the  divine  influence  in  higher  forms  and  for 
the  higher  revelation  of  God  therein.  Such  a  higher  manifesta¬ 
tion  of  God  constitutes  an  epoch  in  the  development  of  the  spir¬ 
itual.  The  greatest  is  the  coming  of  God  in  Christ  reconciling 
the  world  unto  himself.  This  coming  was  delayed  long  after 
man  began  to  exist,  till  he  could  be  educated  and  developed  to 
receive  the  new  incoming  of  God.  So  the  coming  of  man  him¬ 
self  was  delayed  long  after  the  earth  existed,  till  matter  could  be 
elaborated  into  a  medium  capable  of  the  manifestation  of  a  per¬ 
sonal  spirit,  and  the  earth  be  fitted  for  his  habitation.  The  New 
Testament  points  us  forward  to  a  future  epoch  corresponding  in 
glory  with  that  of  the  coming  of  God  in  Christ.  It  is  the  new 
heavens  and  the  new  earth,  when  the  long  conflict  in  the  history 
of  the  earth  between  the  natural  and  the  spiritual  will  be  ended, 
when  in  the  spiritual  body  and  a  corresponding  environment  the 
groaning  and  travailing  in  pain  of  the  whole  creation  together 
will  cease  in  the  revealing  of  the  sons  of  God ;  when  the  appar¬ 
ent  antagonism  between  man  and  his  environment,*  in  the  preva¬ 
lence  of  disease  and  death,  in  the  devastation  of  flood  and  fire,  of 
drought  and  famine,  of  pestilential  agencies  in  the  air,  the  earth 
and  the  water,  will  be  no  more ;  when  “  God  shall  wipe  away 
every  tear  from  their  eyes;  and  death  shall  be  no  more;  neither 
shall  there  be  mourning,  nor  crying,  nor  pain  any  more.” 


494 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


Hume  objects  that  a  miracle  is  incredible  because  contrary  to 
universal  experience.  But  against  miracles  such  as  we  are  now 
considering,  which  constitute  epochs,  this  objection  has  no  force. 
It  might  be  urged  with  equal  pertinence  against  epochal  miracles 
in  nature.  When  life  first  appeared  it  was  a  new  reality;  it  had 
never  appeared  on  the  earth  before.  Nothing  can  be  more  cer¬ 
tain  than  that  life  on  earth  had  a  beginning.  And  it  is  evident 
that  nothing  has  ever  been  found  in  organic  matter  which  can 
account  for  its  beginning.  And  there  is  no  objection  to  believing 
that  it  began,  in  the  fact  that  when  it  had  begun  it  remained. 
We  may  say  the  same  of  the  new  revelation  of  God  in  Christ. 
Christ’s  coming  into  the  world  introduced  a  new  power  of  spirit¬ 
ual  life,  and  it  has  remained.  It  is  more  powerful  in  the  world 
now  than  ever  before. 

The  miracles  which  we  have  been  considering  may  be  called 
epochal  miracles.  Besides  these  there  are  the  incidental  mira¬ 
cles  which  do  not  constitute  epochs.  Such  are  the  miracles  of 

healing  by  Christ  and  his  apostles.  These  are  not  essential  in 

God’s  redemption  of  men  in  Christ.  Any  one  of  them  might 

have  been  omitted,  and  Christianity  would  have  remained  essen¬ 
tially  unchanged.1  Miracles  of  this  type  are  usually  clustered 
about  the  great  epochs  of  redemption  or  some  peculiar  exigency 
in  the  progress  of  God’s  kingdom.  Accordingly  we  find  in  the 
biblical  history  that  miracles  were  not  continuous,  but  were  for 
the  most  part  concentrated  in  a  few  epochs.  They  appear  at 
the  coming  of  Christ  and  the  introduction  of  his  reign  of  grace 
in  the  world.  They  are  to  appear  at  his  final  coming  at  the 
end  of  the  natural  life  of  mankind.  Another  epoch  of  miracles 
is  at  the  call  of  Abraham,  when  the  reign  of  God  in  his  cov¬ 
enant  of  grace  with  men  begins  to  emerge  into  the  light  of  his¬ 
tory.  Then  much  more  at  the  deliverance  from  Egypt,  when  the 
theocratic  kingdom  is  given  a  political  and  ecclesiastical  organ¬ 
ization  and  enters  on  the  second  period  of  its  development.  Then 
in  the  times  of  Elijah  and  Elisha,  attending  the  fuller  develop¬ 
ment  of  the  prophetic  office  and  the  clearer  outlook  to  the  Mes¬ 
siah.  The  action  of  God  specially  manifesting  himself  and  con- 

1  “  Miracles  as  mere  facts  are,  the  most  of  them,  of  very  little  moment. 
Ninety-nine  out  of  a  hundred  of  them  could  be  swept  away  with  no  loss  to 
faith,  but  with  great  gain  rather.”  —  Dr.  Bascom,  Natural  Theology,  p.  230. 
This  is  an  extravagant  assertion.  The  only  truth  in  it  is,  that  no  one  of  the 
“incidental”  miracles  is  essential  to  Christianity.  But  they  are  all  subservi 
ent  to  good  ends  in  the  work  of  redemption. 


MIRACLES. 


495 


stituting  these  epochs  is  miraculous  in  its  essence.  It  is  so,  for 
example,  in  the  coming  of  God  in  Christ,  in  Christ’s  resurrec¬ 
tion  and  ascension,  in  the  descent  of  the  Spirit  on  the  day  of 
Pentecost.  These  epochs  and  the  miraculous  action  essential  in 
them  belong  to  the  plan  of  the  spiritual  system.  The  accom¬ 
panying  non-epochal  miracles  are  important  in  its  progressive 
realization.  They  are  in  harmony  with  the  redemptive  work 
and  have  intrinsic  connection  with  its  advancement.  When  once 
we  have  knowledge  of  the  reality  of  any  miracle,  all  a  priori 
objections  founded  on  their  impossibility  or  their  incredibility 
are  nullified.  When  once  we  recognize  the  existence  of  the 
spiritual  system  in  which  God  is  realizing  his  highest  ends,  and 
the  subordination  of  the  physical  system  to  it,  the  incidental 
miracles  no  longer  seem  isolated.  They  are  incidental  to  the 
great  spiritual  epochs  around  which  we  find  them  clustered,  inci¬ 
dental  manifestations  of  the  spiritual  energy  working  in  these 
epochs.  And  each  and  all  of  them  have  some  intrinsic  connec¬ 
tion  with  the  great  spiritual  work  of  God  in  redeeming  the  world 
from  sin.  And  on  account  of  their  intrinsic  harmony  with  the 
work  of  redemption,  it  is  worthy  of  note  that,  however  incredible 
miracles  seem  in  other  records,  we  are  never  conscious  of  surprise 
in  reading  of  them  in  the  life  of  Christ  and  the  biblical  record 
of  God’s  action  in  redemption.  The  central  and  all-pervading 
thought  that  this  is  the  record  of  God’s  action  in  redeeming  men 
from  sin  is  so  vast,  the  realities  opened  to  us  are  so  stupendous, 
the  scenes  disclosed  are  so  sublime,  ever}r  step  in  the  progress  of 
the  narrative  is  so  manifestly  the  step  of  the  Almighty,  that  the 
miracles  harmonize  with  the  grandeur  of  the  whole  revelation. 
They  seem  to  us  no  more  surprising  or  incredible  than  the  rain¬ 
bow  with  which  God  adorns  the  retiring  storm,  or  the  stars  with 
which  he  nightly  gems  the  sky.  A  miracle  is  not  a  surprise  to 
higher  intelligences,  who  see  the  spiritual  as  it  is  revealed  in 
nature  and  the  spiritual  ends  subserved  through  it. 

We  see,  therefore,  that  miracles,  as  included  in  the  plan  of 
God’s  wisdom  and  love  and  essential  to  its  realization,  are  not 
isolated  events.  They  are  not  mending  breaks,  nor  patching 
newly  discovered  defects,  nor  correcting  errors  and  failures.  So 
in  the  physical  system  the  appearance  of  life,  then  of  sensitivity, 
then  of  rationality,  are  not  a  mending,  patching  or  correcting, 
but  are  essential  stages  in  the  orderly  and  progressive  develop¬ 
ment  of  the  system. 

With  this  view  of  the  grandeur  of  the  epoch-making  miracles, 


496 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


both  in  the  physical  system  and  the  spiritual,  and  with  the  Chris¬ 
tian  conception  of  the  central  significance  in  human  history  of 
the  great  fact  that  God  was  in  Christ  reconciling  the  world  unto 
himself,  we  may  form  some  estimate  of  the  littleness  of  the  con¬ 
ception  of  those  who  regard  Jesus  as  only  a  man  on  a  level  with 
other  teachers  and  reformers,  and  who,  with  M.  Arnold,  find  no 
meaning  in  the  narrative  of  his  birth  except  that  it  is  a  mythical 
representation  of  the  old  asceticism  that  virginity  is  superior  in 
purity  to  marriage. 

A  third  answer  to  this  form  of  the  objection  is,  that  it  rests 
on  the  error  that  miracles  are  significant  only  as  credentials  of 
the  divine  mission  of  the  man  who  works  them.  The  objector 
here  entirely  overlooks  the  epochal  miracles,  which  reveal  in  great 
epochs  the  divine  and  spiritual  forces  developing  in  their  uniform 
and  progressive  course  both  the  physical  system  and  the  spiritual. 
He  thinks  only  of  the  non-epochal  miracles  which  are  incidental 
to  peculiar  conditions  of  the  great  course  of  the  spiritual  ener¬ 
gies,  as  electric  sparks  and  lightning  flashes  are  incidental  to  the 
continuous  flow  of  the  electric  currents.  These  miracles  wrought 
by  Christ  and  his  apostles  are  indeed  evidences  of  a  divine  mis¬ 
sion.  They  appealed  to  them  as  such.  But  they  were  not  wrought 
with  the  primary  design  of  furnishing  evidence,  any  more  than  a 
benevolent  man  does  a  benevolent  deed  with  the  primary  design 
of  proving  his  benevolence.  They  have  intrinsic  connection  with 
the  work  of  redemption,  and  are  incidental  to  existing  conditions 
in  the  progress  of  the  work.  As  such  they  have  evidential  value. 
A  supernatural  effect  reveals  a  supernatural  cause.  As  miracles 
they  reveal  a  spiritual  presence  and  power,  as  electric  sparks  re¬ 
veal  the  presence  and  power  of  electricity.  As  benignant  mira¬ 
cles  wrought  in  furtherance  of  the  work  of  redeeming  men  from 
sin  to  God,  they  reveal  the  benignant  character  of  the  spiritual 
power,  as  the  electric  spark  reveals  electricity  in  its  peculiar  char¬ 
acteristics.  Accordingly  it  is  written  of  the  first  miracle  of  Jesus 
that  in  it  he  manifested  his  glory.  M.  Renan  insists  that  the  only 
adequate  proof  of  a  miracle  would  be  to  do  it  under  the  scrutiny 
of  scientific  experts  and  to  repeat  it  as  often  as  demanded.  This 
would  be  reducing  the  miracle  to  an  ordinary  experiment  in  phys¬ 
ical  science.  He  demands  that  the  proof  of  a  miracle  should  be 
proof  that  it  is  not  a  miracle  but  an  ordinary  event  in  the  course 
of  nature.  He  thus  begs  the  question.  A  miracle  assumes  the  ex¬ 
istence  of  God  and  a  spiritual  system.  It  is  essentially  an  effect 
in  nature  manifesting  the  presence  and  power  of  spiritual  agency 


MIRACLES. 


497 


acting  according  to  spiritual  laws  and  for  spiritual  ends.  M.  Re¬ 
nan’s  demand  implies  that  no  such  spiritual  power  and  system 
exist ;  that  all  which  exists  or  can  manifest  its  existence  is  that 
which  is  included  in  the  physical  system  and  in  its  factual  se¬ 
quences  as  already  known.  It  is  impossible  to  prove  a  super¬ 
natural  effect  if  no  supernatural  cause,  order,  law  or  end  exists. 

Nor  may  we  regard  miracles  merely  as  wonders  designed  to 
call  attention  to  the  words  of  a  divinely  commissioned  teacher. 
John  Foster  says  that  in  miracles  God  rings  the  great  bell  of 
the  universe  to  call  the  attention  of  all  people,  and  then  through 
Christ  and  his  apostles  and  prophets  preaches  the  sermon.  But 
God  does  not  reveal  himself  primarily  by  sermons,  but  by  moving 
and  acting  among  us,  especially  in  the  grand  progress  of  redemp¬ 
tion.  As  in  a  fog  at  sea,  suddenly  for  a  moment  a  topsail  breaks 
through  the  mists  on  our  view,  revealing  the  great  and  peopled 
ship  which  is  moving  unseen  on  its  destined  course,  so  in  a  mira¬ 
cle,  through  the  mists  of  sense  men  catch  a  momentary  glimpse 
of  God  and  powers  of  the  spiritual  world  as  they  move  unseen 
through  the  course  of  the  ages,  redeeming  man  from  sin.  . 

I Y.  Miracles  and  law.  —  The  objection  now  recurs  in  an¬ 
other  form.  Miracles,  it  is  said,  however  explained,  involve  an 
unlimited  and  unconditioned  possibility;  anything  may  happen. 
Whereas  nothing  is  possible  except  what  accords  with  the  deter¬ 
minate  laws  of  physical  science. 

This  assumes  that  God  is  a  capricious  almightiness.  In  ref¬ 
erence  to  this  new  way  of  putting  the  objection,  the  following 
remarks  are  pertinent. 

In  the  first  place,  the  objection  in  this  form  assumes  that 
the  range  of  possibilities  is  determinate,  and  limited  by  scien¬ 
tific  law.  The  theist  insists  that  this  very  statement  necessarily 
carries  us  beyond  the  physical  system  to  a  mind  or  reason  pre¬ 
scribing  to  it  laws,  and  energizing  in  it  and  regulating  its  devel¬ 
opment  within  those  scientific  laws.  Blind  force  cannot  regulate 
itself  by  laws.  The  very  recognition  of  scientific  law  assumes  a 
scientific  mind  which  is  regulating  nature  in  accordance  with  sci¬ 
entific  law.  If,  then,  in  that  scientific  mind  there  is  any  truth 
or  law  not  yet  revealed  in  the  factual  sequences  of  nature  known 
to  us,  or  any  rational  end  not  yet  attained  in  nature,  the  possi¬ 
bility  of  miracle  in  its  essential  significance  is  established.  Thus 
the  very  statement  of  the  objection  assumes  the  possibility  of 
miracles.  They  do  not  set  aside  law,  but  reveal  it  in  a  new  and 
higher  significance  and  application. 

32 


498 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


The  energy  of  the  absolute  Reason  will  be  uniformly  accordant 
with  reason  in  two  respects.  It  can  never  effect  an  absurdity, 
for  this  would  be  to  annul  the  constituent  elements  of  reason 
itself.  No  power,  not  even  almightiness,  can  do  this.  Here,  then, 
is  an  absolute  limit  of  possibility  in  the  fact  that  Reason  is  abso¬ 
lute,  ultimate  and  supreme.  No  power  can  effect  what  is  absurd. 
This  is  the  rational  order. 

There  is  another  respect  in  which  the  power  or  will  of  God 
will  be  in  harmony  with  reason.  In  his  own  free  choice  he  will 
act  in  eternal  accord  with  all  the  principles  of  reason,  with  all  its 
laws,  and  for  the  realization  of  all  its  ideals  and  ends.  This  is 
the  moral  order.  God  always  acts  in  perfect  love  and  wisdom. 

Here,  then,  is  the  twofold  order  of  the  universe,  the  rational 
and  the  moral.  It  is  not  true  that  there  is  an  unlimited  possibility, 
that  anything  may  happen.  The  absolute  Reason  in  energizing 
does  nothing  but  what  is  accordant  with  reason.  The  objection 
of  Professor  Royce,  that  if  a  single  moth  is  singed  the  system 
is  proved  to  be  unreasonable,  rests  only  on  a  superficial  view  of 
the  case.1  It  assumes  that  creation  must  be  complete  at  a  stroke. 
But  a  finite  system  cannot  be  complete,  but  must  be  progressively 
developed.  If,  as  Professor  Royce  says,  the  universal  Reason  is 
always  at  the  goal,  yet  he  can  never  bring  the  finite  being  to  that 
goal,  for  that  would  involve  the  absurdity  of  making  the  finite 
equal  to  the  infinite.  Almightiness  cannot  create  a  person  with 
a  moral  character,  for  moral  character  can  be  formed  only  by  the 
free  acts  of  the  moral  agent  himself.  To  create  a  person  with  a 
moral  character  would  be  as  absurd  as  to  create  a  person  a  hun¬ 
dred  years  old.  According  to  this  writer,  since  moths  are  actually 
singed  in  this  world,  this  is  a  world  not  regulated  by  rational  law ; 
therefore  it  is  a  world  of  unlimited  possibilities,  in  which  any¬ 
thing  may  happen,  even  miracles  ;  but  miracles  only  in  their  false 
meaning  as  actions  exempt  from  all  law. 

In  the  existing  system  sin  is  not  only  possible  but  we  know 
it  in  our  own  experience  and  observation  to  be  actual  and  real. 
Then  God  meets  it  not  only  by  law  but  also  in  redemption.  He 
seeks  men  who  have  separated  themselves  from  him  in  sin  and 
draws  them,  with  all  the  resources  of  moral  influence,  to  return 
to  himself.  Here  then  is  necessary,  not  merely  education  of  in- 

1  “The  first  starving  family,  or  singed  moth,  or  broken  troth,  or  wasted 
effort,  or  wounded  bird,  is  an  indictment  of  the  universal  Reason  that,  always 
at  the  goal,  has  wrought  this  irrational  wrong.” — The  Religious  Aspects  oj 
Philosophy,  p.  263. 


MIRACLES. 


499 


nocent  but  undeveloped  beings,  but  also  the  redemption  of  men 
who  have  sinned,  with  their  discipline,  purification  and  develop¬ 
ment  to  a  right  spiritual  character  and  life.  Here  also  is  a  new 
explanation  of  pain,  as  having  place  in  a  reasonable  system. 
How  is  discipline  possible  or  sin  punishable  without  liability  to 
pain  ?  Here  also  is  a  new  occasion  for  the  miraculous  interven¬ 
tion  of  the  spiritual  powers  in  the  course  of  nature  and  of  human 
history.  But  this  is  with  no  unlimited  and  unconditional  possi¬ 
bility.  Man  must  be  redeemed  by  methods  accordant  with  the 
eternal  law  of  reason,  and  by  redemption  must  be  brought  back 
to  willing  and  complete  conformity  with  that  law.  And  this  fix¬ 
edness  of  law  in  redemption  is  explicitly  recognized  in  the  Chris¬ 
tian  doctrine  of  the  Atonement. 

While  there  is  here  no  unlimited  and  unconditioned  possibility, 
there  is  a  possibility  of  development  and  progress  within  the  lines 
of  law,  leading  to  epochs  both  in  the  physical  and  the  spiritual 
systems  far  in  advance  of  the  factual  sequences  hitherto  known  in 
human  experience. 

Physical  science  itself  leads  on  to  positions  which  suggest  the 
possibility  of  miraculous  effects  in  nature  by  the  intervention 
of  spiritual  powers.  At  every  advance  in  its  brilliant  career  of 
discovery  it  reveals  anew  its  inadequacy  to  answer  the  questions 
which  the  discovery  suggests,  and  forces  attention  on  God  and 
the  spiritual  system  for  the  answer.  It  has  been  said  that  it  is 
only  the  extraordinary  which  led  men  to  think  of  the  supernat¬ 
ural.  But  science  has  revealed  the  unity  of  the  cosmos  and  the 
uniformity  and  continuity  of  all  its  complicated  action  under  the 
reign  of  law.  And  by  disclosing  this  it  forces  us  on  God  and 
the  spiritual  system  for  explanation  of  it.  For  science  is  show¬ 
ing  itself  to  be  nothing  but  the  discovery  of  reason  in  nature  and 
the  interpretation  of  its  physical  processes  in  the  forms  of  reason 
which  they  reveal. 

On  the  other  hand  by  its  discoveries  and  inventions  science  has 
prepared  men's  minds  to  expect  the  unexpected  and  to  regard  the 
extraordinary  as  the  ordinary.  It  has  taught  us  that  the  two- 
foot  rule  of  our  own  experience  is  inadequate  to  measure  the  pos¬ 
sibilities  of  the  universe  through  all  time.  It  has  been  common 
to  appeal  to  the  evidence  of  the  senses  as  giving  the  highest  cer¬ 
tainty.  But  physical  science  has  almost  established  the  opposite 
conclusion  ;  the  farther  from  sense  and  the  more  completely  ideal 
our  view  of  nature,  the  nearer  to  reality.  The  earth  which  seems 
to  the  senses  to  be  flat,  is  shown  by  science  to  be  spherical ;  the 


500 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


seeming  firmament  is  dissolved  and  opens  out  into  boundless 
space  ;  the  reality  of  sound  is  undulations  which  cannot  be  heard  ; 
the  reality  of  light  is  vibrations  which  cannot  be  seen.  Appear¬ 
ances  to  sense  have  to  be  corrected  by  ideas  of  reason.  Mathe¬ 
matical  forms  and  formulas  which  are  pure  creations  of  the  mind 
remain  unchanged.  Men  have  been  wont  to  regard  matter  as 
solid  and  real,  spirit  as  shadowy  and  unreal ;  but  science  indicates 
the  contrary.  Matter  is  never  inert  but  always  energizing,  never 
at  rest  but  always  in  motion,  never  stable  but  always  in  flux.  Sci¬ 
ence  suspects  it  may  be  nothing  but  force  occupying  space ;  it 
conjectures  that  it  was  a  fluid  imperceptible  to  sense  until  it  be¬ 
gan  to  move ;  it  finds  the  mightiest  of  energies  in  the  ether, 
imperceptible  to  sense,  with  the  tension  of  adamant  and  so  ethe¬ 
real  that  it  penetrates  all  bodies  and  is  not  known  to  obstruct 
motion.  Here  again  science  points  beyond  the  material  and  the 
physical  to  the  spiritual,  the  supernatural  and  the  divine,  as  the 
deepest  reality  and  the  true  seat  of  order  and  law. 

Familiarized  as  we  are  with  the  discoveries  by  science  of  won¬ 
ders  which  but  lately  would  have  been  regarded  as  impossibili¬ 
ties,  what  shall  hinder  our  believing  that  in  the  interest  of  the 
spiritual  system  and  for  its  ends  God  may  sometimes  reveal  him¬ 
self  in  nature  in  ways  transcending  its  factual  sequences  which 
we  call  laws?  And  if  so,  that  it  would  be  not  without  laws,  not 
interrupting  the  continuity  and  uniformity  of  the  system  ?  It 
would  be,  on  the  contrary,  an  effect  in  nature  in  accordance  with 
the  higher  laws  of  the  rational  and  moral  system  holding  the 
lower  laws  in  abeyance.  Human  knowledge  can  never  rid  itself 
of  its  one-sidedness  and  become  full-orbed  and  harmonious  with 
itself,  till  it  recognizes  both  the  physical  and  the  spiritual  and 
their  unity  in  one  great  system  of  the  universe.  And  when  we 
see  that  the  physical  system  and  its  laws  are  a  revelation  of  the 
spiritual  system  and  its  laws,  and  that  the  former  is  subordinate 
and  tributary  to  the  ends  of  the  latter,  certainly  we  may  not 
make  man’s  present  experience  of  the  factual  sequences  of  nature 
the  bound  of  all  that  is  ever  to  be  known.  Professor  Jevons 
says:  “We  can  imagine  reasoning  creatures  dwelling  in  a  world 
where  the  atmosphere  was  a  mixture  of  oxygen  and  inflammable 
gas  like  the  fire  -  damp  of  coal-mines.  If  devoid  of  fire,  they 
might  have  lived  through  long  ages  unconscious  of  the  tremen¬ 
dous  forces  which  a  single  spark  would  call  into  play.  In  the 
twinkling  of  an  eye  new  laws  might  come  into  action,  and  the 
poor  reasoning  creatures,  so  confident  about  their  knowledge  of 


MIRACLES. 


501 


the  reign  of  law  in  their  world,  would  have  no  time  to  speculate 
on  the  overthrow  of  all  their  theories.”  1 

From  this  point  of  view  miracles  are  not  only  possible  but  prob¬ 
able.  Nature  exists  for  the  ends  of  the  spiritual  system.  Here 
is  the  one  all-dominating  final  cause,  which  discloses  the  signifi¬ 
cance  of  nature  and  the  unity  of  the  universe.  It  is  probable 
that  for  the  great  ends  of  the  spiritual  system  God  may  reveal 
himself  in  the  physical  system  in  effects  transcending  the  factual 
course  of  nature  and  the  constitutional  power  of  man.  Nor  can 
we  assign  a  limit  to  the  progress  of  this  development  of  the  uni¬ 
verse  in  accordance  with  rational  law  and  for  the  accomplishment 
of  rational  ends. 

And  this,  also,  physical  science  itself  seems  to  indicate.  Ac¬ 
cording  to  Mr.  Fiske,  man  is  the  end  to  which  the  whole  evolu¬ 
tion  of  the  physical  system  on  earth  tends.  When  rational  man 
appears,  there  is  to  be  no  evolution  of  a  higher  species  but  the 
education  and  civilization  of  the  man.  Rational  and  moral  cul¬ 
ture  take  the  place  of  physical  evolution.  Here  is  a  being  who 
is  an  end  in  himself,  and  not  a  mere  medium  for  the  evolution  of 
another  and  higher  species.  Here  the  energies  of  the  physical 
and  spiritual  systems  are  concentrated  on  this  being  to  educate 
and  develop  him  to  higher  and  higher  character  and  powers. 
Here  is  a  new  order  and  sphere  of  existence.  And  who  shall  say 
how  far  this  progressive  development  of  man  may  proceed  ?  If 
here  is  a  being  who  is  an  end  in  himself,  if,  so  soon  as  he  appears, 
the  physical  evolution  gives  place,  as  to  him,  to  spiritual  culture, 
and  the  energies  both  of  the  physical  and  spiritual  systems  serve 
him  to  promote  his  progress,  who  shall  say  that  the  progress  may 
not  be  endless ;  that  man's  life  may  not  issue  in  immortality  ? 
For  if  he  is  not  immortal,  then  the  whole  conception  becomes 
self-contradictory.  If  man  ceases  to  exist  he  ceases  to  be  an  end 
in  himself.  He  becomes  a  mere  physical  creature  dissolved  again 
into  the  physical  system.  Evolution  reached  its  utmost  in  him 
and  dismissed  him  into  the  sphere  of  the  rational  and  the  spirit¬ 
ual,  as  an  end  to  be  served  and  not  as  means  and  material  for 
physical  uses.  All  nature  and  all  spiritual  agencies  begin  to  edu¬ 
cate  and  develop  him.  But  it  was  all  a  mistake.  Nature  takes 
him  back  into  itself  and  grinds  him  up  for  its  own  uses.  Nor 
can  we  say  that  it  is  the  race  which  nature  serves  and  all  spirit¬ 
ual  powers  educate  and  develop.  For*at  some  time  in  the  future, 
if  materialism  is  true  and  no  spiritual  system  exists,  the  whole 

1  Principles  of  Science,  p.  745. 


502 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


process  of  evolution  will  be  ended,  the  world  will  become  motion¬ 
less  and  silent  and  all  life  will  cease.  It  is  only  as  nature  goes 
back  to  the  supernatural  as  its  cause,  and  leads  up  to  and  issues 
in  the  supernatural  as  its  end,  that  the  universe  can  go  on  forever. 
The  only  ends  worthy  of  so  great  a  process  are  the  ends  which 
may  be  realized  in  man  immortal.  In  accomplishing  these  ends  it 
cannot  be  incredible  that  God  should  reveal  himself  in  ways  tran¬ 
scending  the  factual  sequences  of  nature,  yet  without  interrupt¬ 
ing  the  continuity  of  the  system. 

Y.  What  the  impossibility  of  miracles  signifies. — 
We  infer  that  philosophically  and  logically  there  is  no  middle 
ground  between  admitting  the  possibility  of  miracles  and  denying 
the  existence  of  a  personal  God,  of  the  spiritual  and  moral  sys¬ 
tem,  and  of  free  will.  To  deny  miracles  on  the  ground  of  their 
impossibility  involves  the  denial  of  the  personal  God.  Strauss 
sank  gradually  down  to  this  denial.  Others  have  passed  through 
the  same  descent.  History  seems  to  exemplify  the  truth  that 
there  is  logically  and  philosophically  no  stopping  place  between 
denying  that  God  can  reveal  himself  miraculously  and  some  form 
of  atheism.  Therefore  the  controversy  of  the  rationalistic  and 
skeptical  criticism  is  not  with  Christianity  but  with  theism.  The 
real  question  is,  Is  there  a  personal  God  and  is  there  a  system  of 
rational  free  agents  under  his  government  ? 

It  is  true,  as  already  shown,  that  any  incidental  miracle  of 
healing  and  the  like  is  not  of  the  essence  of  the  redemption 
through  Christ.  It  is  conceivable,  though  not  probable,  that 
God  might  have  come  in  Christ  as  he  did,  without  working  any 
miracle  of  this  kind,  and  the  redemptive  action  and  the  revelation 
of  God  in  it  remain  in  their  essential  significance  the  same.  But 
when  miracles  are  denied  on  the  ground  that  they  are  impossible, 
the  denial  rests  on  a  conception  of  the  universe  which  excludes 
the  immanence  of  God  in  nature  and  the  connection  of  the  phys¬ 
ical  system  with  the  spiritual  as  manifesting  or  expressing  its 
truths  and  laws  and  subordinate  to  its  higher  ends.  Thus  it  de¬ 
nies  that  conception  of  the  universe  in  its  relation  to  God,  and  of 
the  physical  in  its  relation  to  the  spiritual  and  supernatural,  on 
which  the  essential  significance  of  redemption  by  God  in  Christ 
and  of  Christianity  rests.  It  is  incompatible  with  any  action  of 
God  in  the  epochs  either  of  physical  evolution  or  of  spiritual  de¬ 
velopment  and  progress ;  and  in  fact  with  any  intervention  of  the 
supernatural  in  the  natural,  directing  it  by  spiritual  and  super¬ 
natural  laws  to  spiritual  and  supernatural  ends,  and  thus  reveal- 


MIRACLES.  503 

ing  in  the  universe  God  and  his  kingdom,  and  in  nature  that  which 
is  above  nature. 

This  denial  excludes  personal  immortality.  The  transition  of 
man  at  death  into  the  spiritual  sphere  and  a  higher  and  immortal 
existence  involves  every  supposition  respecting  God  and  the  su¬ 
pernatural  in  relation  to  the  physical  which  miracles  involve. 
Strauss  rejected  personal  immortality;  and  in  the  dedication  of 
his  second  and  modified  Life  of  Jesus  to  a  deceased  brother  he 
boastfully  declares  his  disbelief.  The  pathetic  lines  of  George 
Eliot  are  familiar,  in  which  renouncing  all  belief  in  personal  ex¬ 
istence  after  death,  she  recognizes  immortality  as  possible  only  in 
the  survival  of  our  good  influence  :  — 

“  O  may  I  join  the  choir  invisible 
Of  those  immortal  dead  who  live  again 
In  minds  made  better  by  their  presence  .  .  . 

So  to  live  is  heaven.” 

And  Matthew  Arnold  reaches  the  same  conclusion.  “What 
really  is  Christmas  ?  The  birth-day  of  J esus.  What  is  the 
miracle  of  the  Incarnation  ?  A  homage  to  the  virtue  of  pureness 
and  to  the  manifestation  of  this  virtue  in  Jesus.  What  is  Lent 
and  the  miracle  of  the  temptation  ?  A  homage  to  the  virtue  of 
self-control  and  to  the  manifestation  of  this  virtue  in  Jesus. 
What  does  Easter  celebrate  ?  Jesus  victorious  over  death  by 
dying.  By  dying  how  ?  Dying  to  re-live.  To  re-live  in  Para¬ 
dise,  in  another  world  ?  No,  in  this.  What  then  is  the  king¬ 
dom  of  God  ?  The  ideal  society  of  the  future.  Then  what  is 

%/ 

immortality  ?  To  live  in  the  eternal  order  which  never  dies. 
What  is  salvation  by  Christ  ?  The  attainment  of  this  immor¬ 
tality.  Through  what  means  ?  Through  means  of  the  method 
and  the  secret  and  the  temper  of  Jesus.”  1  Here  is  the  denial  of 
immortality  veiled  under  high  sounding  words. 

In  like  manner  the  denial  of  the  possibility  of  miracles  is 
equally  a  denial  of  the  possibility  of  communion  with  God  in 
prayer,  of  the  forgiveness  of  sin,  of  a  people  redeemed  from  sin 
by  the  immediate  action  of  God’s  grace,  and  of  the  establishment 
and  progress  of  the  kingdom  of  God  on  earth.  For  the  possi¬ 
bility  of  these  and  of  miracles  rests  ultimately  on  the  same  funda¬ 
mental  conception  of  the  universe  in  its  relation  to  God  and  as 
comprising  the  two  systems,  the  physical  or  natural  and  the  spir¬ 
itual  or  moral,  which  is  the  supernatural. 

In  this  deeper  sense  the  possibility  of  the  miraculous  is  of  the 

1  A  Comment  on  Christmas,  Contemporary  Review,  April,  1885. 


504 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


essence  of  Christianity  and  the  denial  of  its  possibility  involves 
the  denial  of  that  which  is  distinctive  and  essential  in  Christian¬ 
ity.  Christianity  implies  primarily  a  supernatural,  divine  action 
in  the  redemption  of  sinful  man  ;  and  secondarily,  a  supernatural 
revelation  of  God  in  that  action.  The  whole  conception  involves 
the  miraculous. 

In  conclusion,  it  is  evident  that  the  question  with  the  objector 
is  not  merely  as  to  the  possibility  of  any  or  all  of  the  incidental 
miracles,  like  the  healing  of  a  sick  man  by  a  word.  It  is  the 
fundamental  question  whether  God  can  be  active  in  the  universe, 
evolving  nature  to  higher  planes  ;  and  in  the  spiritual  system, 
educating  and  developing  free  personal  beings  and  redeeming 
sinners  from  their  sin.  In  fact  the  question  goes  deeper  even 
than  this.  For  if  miracles  are  shown  to  be  impossible,  the  same 
arguments  equally  prove  that  there  is  no  God,  no  spiritual  sys¬ 
tem,  no  free  will  of  man.  That  is,  they  equally  prove  that  the 
physical  system  comprehends  all  and  that  rational  free  will  does 
not  exist  either  in  God  or  man  or  any  personal  being. 


CHAPTER  XVI. 


UNITY  AND  CONTINUITY  OF  THE  REVELATION  OF  GOD  IN 

NATURE,  MAN  AND  CHRIST. 

Nature  and  the  supernatural  are  commonly  regarded  as  recip¬ 
rocally  repugnant.  They  have  been  distinguished  as  the  orderly 
and  the  anomalous  ;  as  the  realm  of  law  and  the  realm  of  caprice. 
The  Christian  revelation,  as  involving  the  supernatural,  has  been 
regarded  as  outside  of  nature  and  acting  in  it  only  by  irruption 
and  interference. 

Their  unity  and  continuity  are  sought  in  vain  by  pulling  the 
supernatural  down  into  the  natural  and  submerging  it  therein. 
This  simply  annuls  the  supernatural.  It  would  be  to  make  a 
desert  and  call  it  peace.  And  because  the  supernatural  cannot 
be  banished  from  human  thought,  presently  within  the  all-em¬ 
bracing  nature  the  dualism  reappears,  and  the  problem  of  finding 
the  unity  and  continuity  of  the  physical  and  the  spiritual,  the 
natural  and  the  supernatural,  forces  itself  on  us  anew. 

And  their  unity  and  continuity  cannot  be  found  in  any  theory 
of  monism,  pantheistic  or  materialistic.  These  seek  the  ultimate 
ground  of  the  universe  in  some  form  of  the  unconscious  and  im¬ 
personal  and  exclude  conscious  rational  and  personal  free  will. 

The  course  of  thought  in  this  volume  presents  a  solution  of 
this  problem,  which  preserves  the  distinction  between  the  natural 
and  the  supernatural  and  at  the  same  time  discloses  their  unity 
and  continuity  as  progressively  expressing  the  archetypal  thought 
and  realizing  the  archetypal  ideal  and  end  of  the  absolute  Rea¬ 
son  immanent  and  energizing  in  them. 

It  remains  to  consider  more  particularly  the  significance  of  this 
unity  and  continuity. 

I.  Unity  and  continuity  of  god’s  revelation  in  na¬ 
ture  AND  MAN. — Nature  and  the  supernatural  are  in  unity 
and  continuity  as  the  continuous  and  progressive  revelation  of 
God,  the  eternal  and  universal  Reason. 

The  attempt  of  some  writers  to  find  this  unity  by  supposing 
the  uniform  sequences,  called  laws  of  nature,  to  be  extended  over 


506 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


the  spiritual  system  can  be  only  abortive.  The  laws  of  nature' 
which  declare  mere  uniform  factual  sequences  are  laws  only  in 
a  secondary  sense.  In  the  lapse  of  time  these  sequences  may 
change  and  give  place  to  new  arrangements.  On  the  contrary  it  is 
the  principles  and  laws  of  reason  which  extend  over  nature,  and 
its  ideals  and  ends  which  are  progressively  realized  in  the  cease¬ 
less  course  of  nature.  It  is  these  principles  and  laws  which  per¬ 
sist  in  all  physical  sequences,  survive  all  their  changes,  reappear 
and  persist  in  every  new  arrangement.  Such,  for  example,  per¬ 
sisting  unchanged  through  all  changes,  are  the  law  of  causation, 
the  law  of  uniformity  and  continuity,  that  the  same  complex  of 
causes  must  everywhere  and  always  produce  the  same  effect,  the 
law  of  the  correlation  and  conservation  of  motor-force,  the  princi¬ 
ples  of  mathematics,  the  laws  of  falling  bodies,  of  gravitation,  of 
the  dispersion  of  force,  and  all  laws  of  mechanics  founded  on 
mathematical  principles.  These  are  the  true  laws  of  nature. 
It  has  been  shown  that  the  fundamental  axiom  of  physical  science 
that  the  sum  of  all  force,  potential  and  energetic,  is  always  the 
same,  can  be  true  only  if  there  is  a  God ;  that  all  science  de¬ 
pends  on  the  assumption  of  the  universal  Reason  in  harmony 
with  human  reason  ;  that  it  is  only  in  the  recognition  of  this  ab¬ 
solute  Reason,  which  we  call  God,  that  the  rationale  and  signifi¬ 
cance  of  the  laws  of  nature  are  found.  Thus  it  is  the  principles 
and  laws  of  the  supernatural  which  are  regulative  in  the  natural 
and  are  revealed  in  the  factual  sequences  which  are  called  the 
laws  of  nature.  The  factual  sequences  and  arrangements  them¬ 
selves,  though  they  may  last  as  long  as  the  rotation  and  revolu¬ 
tion  of  the  earth,  begin,  are  subject  to  change  and  pass  away. 
It  is  the  same  in  the  spiritual  or  supernatural  system.  Men  are 
born  and  die.  Nations  arise,  flourish  and  decay.  Literatures, 
forms  of  government,  civilizations  have  their  periods  and  the  old 
gives  place  to  the  new.  But  the  principles  of  truth,  the  law  of 
love  and  the  standards  of  perfection,  beauty  and  worth  are  the 
same  forever. 

The  most  pregnant  words  ever  written  are  the  first  four  words 
of  Genesis:  “  In  the  beginning  God.”  Godless  theories  conceive 
of  the  universe  as  the  less  developing  itself  into  the  greater,  the 
lower  lifting  itself  to  the  higher.  Thus  the  evolution  becomes 
the  continued  production  of  effects  without  a  cause.  Theism 
says :  “  In  the  beginning  God.”  In  the  evolution  God  is  always 
immanent,  directing  and  energizing,  preparing  what  is  to  be  the 
medium  for  the  manifestation  of  something  new  and  higher;  and 


UNITY  AND  CONTINUITY  OF  THE  REVELATION.  507 


at  successive  epochs  bringing  in  the  higher,  as  soon  as  a  fitting 
sphere  for  its  action  and  a  fitting  medium  for  its  manifestation 
are  prepared.  The  evolution  is  God’s  continually  greatening 
revelation  of  himself. 

Thus  God’s  revelation  of  himself  is  not  limited  to  a  few  tran¬ 
scendent  but  isolated  facts  of  the  supernatural,  which  we  call 
miracles.  The  universe  itself  in  its  whole  progressive  develop¬ 
ment  is  the  revelation  of  God.  In  the  evolution  of  the  physical 
system  and  in  the  education,  redemption  and  development  of 
man,  God’s  revelation  of  himself  goes  on  through  all  time.  From 
the  lowest  form  of  primitive  matter  to  the  highest  form  of  finite 
spirit  the  universe  is  the  continuous  and  progressive  revelation  of 
God.  And  the  natural  and  the  supernatural  are  in  unity  and 
continuity  as  the  continued  revelation  of  the  thought  and  realiza¬ 
tion  of  the  ideal  and  end  which  are  archetypal  in  God,  the  eternal 
and  ever  energizing  Reason. 

God’s  expression  of  his  thought  in  the  finite  begins  in  the  nat¬ 
ural  or  physical,  evolving  in  it  successively  higher  and  higher 
stages  of  existence.  The  supernatural  appears  at  length  in  man. 
But  here  is  no  break  in  the  continuity  of  the  divine  action.  So 
soon  as  matter  in  its  evolution  has  become  susceptible  of  being 
quickened  into  organic  life  and  the  world  has  become  fitted  to 
sustain  it,  the  ever  energizing  Reason  quickens  it  into  life.  And 
when  the  world  has  become  fitted  to  be  the  habitation  of  man 
and  a  living  organism  has  become  capable  of  being  the  medium 
for  the  manifestation  of  spiritual  life,  God  breathes  into  it  a  liv¬ 
ing  spirit.  Thus  in  man  a  being  appears  in  whom  the  physical 
and  the  spiritual,  the  natural  and  the  supernatural  are  united. 
The  cosmic  physical  forces  sweep  through  man’s  organism  as  they 
do  through  the  trees.  But  man  is  conscious  of  the  powers  acting 
on  him,  he  apprehends,  defines  and  comprehends  them  in  thought, 
enunciates  them  in  their  intellectual  equivalents  in  systems  of 
science,  and  appropriates  the  forces  and  resources  of  nature  to 
his  own  use  and  to  the  accomplishment  of  his  own  plans  and 
chosen  ends.  He  is  above  nature  because  he  knows  it  and  in¬ 
telligently  directs  and  uses  it.  On  the  other  hand  he  finds  under¬ 
lying  his  science  and  revealed  in  it  the  principles  and  laws,  the 
ideals  and  ends  of  reason,  which,  if  the  science  is  real,  must  be 
the  Reason  that  is  universal.  In  nature,  when  scientifically 
known,  he  finds  the  principles  and  laws,  the  ideals  and  ends  of 
his  own  reason  revealed,  and  therein  knows  his  own  reason  as 
the  likeness  of  the  Reason  that  is  universal  and  supreme.  Thus 


508 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOI). 


man  is  the  being  in  whom  nature  and  the  supernatural  meet,  and 
in  whom  the  light  of  the  absolute  Reason  shines.  In  him  the 
physical  system  and  the  spiritual  meet  and  are  in  unity  as  the 
revelation  of  God. 

Physiology  itself  brings  us  face  to  face  with  this  great  fact. 
It  discloses  the  fact  that  every  thought,  volition  and  feeling  is 
accompanied  by  molecular  motion  of  the  brain.  It  forces  on  us 
the  question,  What  is  the  relation  of  the  molecular  motion  to  the 
conscious  mental  action  ?  In  answer  to  this  question  the  follow¬ 
ing  positions  have  been  taken. 

Comte  denies  that  consciousness  is  a  legitimate  source  of 
psychological  knowledge  and  ignores  mental  phenomena  as  out¬ 
side  of  the  legitimate  sphere  of  science.  But  this  position  is  itself 
unscientific.  It  assumes  a  scientific  knowledge  of  man  while  tak¬ 
ing  no  notice  of  a  whole  class  of  indisputable  facts.  In  fact  it 
implies  that  science  itself,  being  a  mental  phenomenon,  is  not 
scientific,  but  is  excluded  from  the  sphere  of  scientific  knowl¬ 
edge. 

Materialists  answer  that  the  conscious  mental  phenomena  are 
caused  by  the  molecular  action.  Mr.  Huxley  has  said:  “We 
have  as  much  reason  for  regarding  the  mode  of  motion  of  the 
nervous  system  as  the  cause  of  the  state  of  consciousness,  as  we 
have  for  regarding  any  event  as  the  cause  of  another.”  But  this 
is  a  physical  impossibility,  and  as  such  is  denied  by  science. 
Motion  proceeds  only  from  motion,  and  in  all  its  transformations 
cannot  produce  any  thing  but  motion.  If  it  were  transformed 
into  thought  it  would  disappear  as  motion.  This  would  be  con¬ 
trary  to  the  law  of  the  correlation  and  conservation  of  force.  It 
would  be  a  miracle  in  the  extreme  of  its  false  meaning,  as  an 
event  contrary  to  all  law.  Mr.  Huxley  himself,  though  he  has 
declared  motion  to  be  the  cause  of  the  phenomena  of  conscious¬ 
ness  and  thus  claims  to  give  a  scientific  account  of  them,  does 
really  exclude  them  from  scientific  recognition.  He  calls  men 
“  conscious  automata.”  He  insists  that  thought  and  feeling  are 
merely  “  indices  of  changes  which  are  going  on  in  the  brain.” 
Thus  he  teaches  that  conscious  mental  action  is  not  a  force  or 
energy ;  it  does  no  work  ;  every  demand  of  physical  science  is 
met  without  it.  Consciousness  is  a  mere  register  which  some¬ 
how  has  become  attached  to  some  machines.  The  machine 
would  be  just  as  perfect  and  efficient  without  it.  Hence  if 
every  thing  were  going  on  in  the  world  as  now,  but  without 
consciousness,  every  formula  of  science  would  be  met  and  every 


UNITY  AND  CONTINUITY  OF  THE  REVELATION.  509 


demand  of  science  satisfied  as  completely  as  with  consciousness. 
Thus  all  these  known  facts  of  consciousness  are  arbitrarily  ex¬ 
cluded  from  the  sphere  of  legitimate  scientific  investigation. 

A  third  answer  is  that  the  molecular  motion  of  the  brain  is 
caused  by  the  action  of  the  mind.  This  answer  may  be  accepted 
by  those  who  believe  in  the  existence  of  rational  personal  beings. 
It  is  denied  as  unscientific  by  all  who  do  not  believe  this.  The 
reason  given  is  that  if  the  mind  is  a  cause  of  motion  the  effect 
will  be  a  miracle.  This  is  plainly  a  begging  of  the  question.  It 
is  asked:  Is  this  an  effect  of  a  cause  other  than  matter  and 
motor-force  ?  The  answer  is,  No ;  because  the  supposed  cause 
would  be  other  than  matter  and  motor-force.  Here  it  is  assumed 
as  a  universal  postulate  that  there  is  no  causative  energy  in  the 
universe  except  that  of  matter  manifested  in  motor-force ;  or 
rather  that  of  motion.  We  are  told  that  “  all  the  forms  of 
energy  have  now  been  proved  to  be  but  modes  of  motion.” 
When  mental  phenomena  are  known  which  confessedly  are  not 
modes  of  motion,  they  are  arbitrarily  ignored  as  beyond  the  pale 
of  science.  But  that  is  not  science  which  refuses  to  seek  a  scien¬ 
tific  explanation  of  known  facts. 

It  should  be  noticed,  however,  that  the  reason  given  for  this 
denial  is  a  recognition  of  the  fact  that  a  miracle  in  its  essence  is 
no  more  than  a  causative  action  of  a  rational  power  or  mind  on 
nature.  It  does  not  consist  essentially  in  the  interrupting  of  the 
order  and  laws  of  nature. 

A  fourth  answer  is  that  consciousness  and  the  molecular  mo¬ 
tion  may  be  two  aspects  of  the  same  reality,  dual  as  it  appears  to 
us,  but  one  as  it  is  in  fact.  Both  mind  and  motion  are  simul¬ 
taneously  concerned  in  the  one  causal  energy.  “  Motion  is  sup¬ 
posed  to  be  producing  nothing  but  motion  ;  mind-changes  pro¬ 
duce  nothing  but  mind-changes ;  both  producing  both  simul¬ 
taneously,  neither  could  be  what  it  is  without  the  other,  because 
without  the  other  neither  could  be  the  cause  which  in  fact  it  is.” 
In  the  absence  of  mind  the  molecular  action  of  the  brain  could 
no  more  be  what  it  is ;  in  the  absence  of  brain  the  conscious 
mental  action  could  no  more  be  what  it  is.  This  is  illustrated 
by  the  vibrations  of  the  chords  of  a  harp  and  the  music  which 
we  hear.  These  are  two  different  ways  of  viewing  the  same 
reality.  If  either  the  vibrations  or  the  mental  act  were  wanting 
there  would  be  no  music. 

Such  a  theory  was  proposed  by  the  late  Professor  Clifford.1 

1  Lectures  and  Essays,  vol.  ii.  pp.  31-70,  Body  and  Mind  ;  vol.  i.  pp.  228- 
253,  The  Unseen  Universe. 


510 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


It  declares  that  mental  phenomena  are  not  a  form  of  motion  and 
cannot  be  accounted  for  by  motion.  On  the  contrary,  it  declares 
that  mental  phenomena  are  a  causative  energy  acting  on  nature ; 
that  mind  is  a  cause  other  than  motor-force,  though  acting  jointly 
with  it.  It  thus  recognizes  mental  phenomena  as  within  the  pale 
of  science  and  as  legitimate  objects  of  scientific  investigation. 
And  the  conception  of  this  universe  going  on  automatically  just 
as  it  does  now,  but  without  consciousness,  becomes  impossible. 
This  theory  also,  while  distinguishing  the  physical  and  the  spir¬ 
itual,  declares  their  real  unity  and  cooperation. 

In  these  respects  this  theory  is  a  real  advance.  But  it  does 
not  give  the  full  significance  of  the  union  of  the  physical  and  the 
spiritual  in  man.  According  to  Professor  Clifford  mind  is  merely 
a  series  of  subjective  impressions.  He  says  this  is  all  which  he 
finds  in  his  own  consciousness.  He  thinks  there  is  no  room  in 
the  universe  for  ghosts,  or  superior  intelligences  or  bogies  of  any 
kind.  But  this  contradicts  the  obvious  fact  of  the  unity  of  con¬ 
sciousness.  A  series  of  impressions  cannot  in  each  separate  im¬ 
pression  be  conscious  of  itself  in  the  unity  of  a  series.  This  is 
mere  nonsense.  The  theory  also  contradicts  the  common  con¬ 
sciousness  of  men.  Professor  Clifford  says  “  if  the  mind  were  a 
force  we  should  be  able  to  perceive  it.”  The  fact  is  that,  with 
the  exception  of  the  professor  and  a  few  theorists,  men  are  con¬ 
scious  that  they  do  perceive  it.  When  a  man  thinks  or  wills  or 
exerts  his  energy,  he  is  conscious  that  it  is  himself  who  thinks 
and  wills  and  acts.  He  cannot  utter  his  consciousness  without 
declaring  this  belief;  I  think,  I  will,  I  act.  In  fact  man's 
knowledge  of  force  or  energy  originates  in  his  consciousness  of 
himself  exerting  or  resisting  it. 

The  theory  contradicts  not  only  consciousness  and  common 
sense,  but  reason  also.  It  is  a  constituent  element  of  reason 
regulating  all  thought,  that  there  can  be  no  thought  without  a 
thinker,  no  action  without  an  agent,  no  motion  without  some¬ 
thing  which  moves  and  something  which  causes  the  motion,  no 
quality  without  a  being,  no  phenomenon  without  something 
which  appears  and  something  to  which  it  appears.  No  chemistry 
of  thought  can  dissolve  this  unity,  no  ingenuity  of  skepticism  can 
annul  the  principle  of  reason  which  compels  us  thus  to  think. 
It  underlies  all  rational  thought  and  knowledge.  Men  may  spec¬ 
ulate  as  to  the  nature  of  the  being.  They  may  call  it  thought  or 
they  may  call  it  force.  But  all  the  same  the  thought  or  the  force 
is  hypostasized  as  objectively  real  and  the  hypostasized  thought 


UNITY  AND  CONTINUITY  OF  THE  REVELATION.  511 


or  force  is  distinguished  from  the  subjective  consciousness  of  it. 
Whatever  is  presented  in  consciousness  is  known  also  in  the  forms 
of  reason  as  a  phenomenon  of  being. 

We  must  then  advance  beyond  this  theory  to  find  the  signifi¬ 
cance  of  the  unity  of  mental  phenomena  and  molecular  motion. 
When  once  it  is  admitted  that  the  molecular  motion  of  the  brain 
is  not  the  cause  of  conscious  mental  acts,  then  physiology  and 
biology  disclose  an  effect  for  which  within  their  sphere  no  cause 
can  be  found.  And  when  they  further  admit  that  mental  phe¬ 
nomena  are  a  causal  energy  acting  on  nature,  they  point  up  to 
the  only  reasonable  position  remaining,  that  conscious  mental  acts 
are  acts  of  a  rational  personal  being.  In  man  as  a  personal  be¬ 
ing  his  power  is  enlightened  by  reason  and  is  thus  self-directing 
and  self-exertive.  But  he  is  in  nature  while  above  it,  a  personal 
spirit  in  and  acting  through  a  physical  organization.  And  in  this 
personal  spirit,  conscious  of  itself  and  revealing  itself  through  an 
organized  body,  is  the  synthesis  and  the  only  synthesis  of  motion 
and  thought,  of  physical  force  and  rational  will,  of  matter  and 
spirit.  Physiology  and  biology  have  brought  us  forward  to  a 
point  of  view  from  which  we  must  see  man  as  at  once  natural 
and  supernatural,  as  a  personal  being,  in  nature  yet  above  it,  and 
acting  in  and  on  it  from  above. 

In  this  union  of  the  natural  and  the  supernatural  in  man  we 
have  a  point  of  view  from  which  we  see  the  possibility  and  prob¬ 
ability  that  there  may  be  a  conscious  mind  acting  as  causal  en¬ 
ergy  along  the  lines  of  physical  force  and  directing  them.  And 
we  see  both  the  possibility  and  the  probability  that  the  absolute 
Being,  that  is  the  ultimate  ground  of  the  universe,  is  the  absolute 
Reason ;  and  that  the  energy  acting  in  the  universe  goes  back  for 
its  origin  to  the  absolute  Power  that  is  inseparable  from  the  ab¬ 
solute  Reason,  that  is  one  and  the  same  with  it,  Reason  energiz¬ 
ing  ;  and  this  is  God.  Professor  Clifford  denies  this.  He  argues 
that  we  know  conscious  mental  phenomena  only  as  connected 
with  the  action  of  a  brain  ;  and  there  can  be  no  God  that  acts  in 
conscious  rationality,  because  we  know  of  no  great  brain  through 
which  his  consciousness  would  be  possible.  But  the  professor’s 
experience  is  too  limited  to  justify  this  inference.  To  argue  that 
because  human  intelligence  is  connected  with  a  brain  therefore 
God  cannot  be  intelligent  except  through  an  infinite  brain  is  an¬ 
thropomorphism  in  its  grossest  form.  We  return  upon  him  the 
question  of  the  skeptic  to  the  theist :  — 


512 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


“  Think  you  this  mold  of  hopes  and  fears 
Could  find  no  statelier  than  his  peers 
In  yonder  hundred  million  spheres?” 

If  we  are  to  reason  from  experience,  the  legitimate  inference  is 
that  because  mind,  as  we  know  it,  is  conscious  therefore  all  other 
mind  in  the  universe  must  be  conscious.  And  since  Professor 
Clifford  recognizes  mind  as  a  causative  energy  distinct  from 
motor-force  and  finds  it  necessary  to  suppose  some  element  of 
mind  in  every  motion  in  nature,  the  inference  seems  to  be  inev¬ 
itable,  even  from  his  own  position,  that  that  which  is  ultimate 
in  the  universe  must  be  mind.  And  since  the  highest  order  of 
power  known  to  us  is  mind-power,  we  must  infer  that  the  ulti¬ 
mate  and  absolute  cause  of  the  universe  must  be  mind-power ;  for 
it  cannot  be  of  an  order  inferior  to  beings  actually  existing  in  the 
universe.  Still  more  when  we  see  that  man,  as  a  rational  person, 
is  supernatural  and  spiritual,  we  must  recognize  the  supernatural 
and  spiritual  in  God.  Thus  physiology  and  biology  bring  us  to 
the  door  which  opens  from  the  darkness  of  the  impersonal  and 
physical  into  the  realm  of  the  spiritual  and  the  presence  of  God. 

The  fact  that  man’s  mind  acts  through  a  physical  organization 
does  not  justify  the  inference  that  it  must  perish  when  the  phys¬ 
ical  organization  dies  and  is  dissolved.  Behind  the  world  per¬ 
ceptible  to  sense  is  a  world  of  molecules  and  ethers  entirely  im¬ 
perceptible.  Behind  this  imperceptible  world,  science  is  finding 
itself  obliged  to  assume  atoms  of  a  secondary  order,  some  friction¬ 
less  fluid,  some  homogeneous,  still  more  remote  from  sense.  Evo¬ 
lution  assumes  that  the  imperceptible  universe  existed  before  the 
perceptible,  and  that  the  latter  is  evolved  from  the  former.  But 
behind  this  imperceptible  world,  and  beyond  and  above  it,  we 
find  mind  revealing  itself.  If  now  it  is  admitted  that  mind  in 
man  is  a  causative  energy,  in  the  consciousness  of  which  man 
knows  himself  as  a  personal  being,  and  in  this  consciousness  his 
knowledge  of  being  in  its  deepest  reality  originates,  it  is  entirely 
supposable  that  this  personal  spirit  may  have  in  itself  energy  to 
survive  the  catastrophe  of  death,  taking  with  it  or  finding  for 
itself  in  the  extra-sensible  sphere  a  finer  medium  through  which 
to  act  in  consciousness.  And  this  is  the  more  reasonable  because 
God  is  ever  energizing  in  the  progressive  evolution  of  nature  and 
the  progressive  development  of  the  spiritual  system.  And  as  in 
a  great  epoch  of  evolution  he  breathed  the  human  spirit  into  this 
mortal  body,  it  is  in  analogy  with  the  whole  course  of  the  evolu¬ 
tion  that  death  should  be  another  epoch  in  which  man  is  lifted  to 


UNITY  AND  CONTINUITY  OF  THE  REVELATION.  513 

a  higher  plane  of  being.  Thus  physiology  and  biology  open  to 
us  an  outlook  of  hope  and  probability  to  immortal  life. 

In  following  scientific  thought  into  the  extra-sensible  world 
and  tracing  its  venturesome  speculations  respecting  different  or¬ 
ders  of  atomic  existence  therein,  the  thought  may  naturally  sug¬ 
gest  itself  that  a  still  finer  mind-stuff  may  underlie  the  most  re¬ 
fined  of  the  extra-sensible  matter  and  manifest  itself  by  acting 
therein.  But  this  implies  that  the  mind-stuff  is  merely  a  finer 
form  of  matter,  therefore  only  the  medium  through  which  a 
mind  or  spirit  may  reveal  itself.  It  is  not  the  mind  or  spirit 
itself.  The  ultimate  unit  of  the  spiritual  system  is  a  conscious 
rational  person.  The  spiritual  system  can  be  conceived  only  as 
consisting  of  rational  persons,  in  unity  by  participating  in  the 
light  of  a  common  rationality  and  acting  in  free  will  under  one 
and  the  same  moral  law.  It  is  a  system,  which,  as  it  is  observed 
to  exist  on  earth,  began  at  the  great  epoch  when  rational  man 
appeared.  It  is  not  impossible  nor  incredible  that  a  spiritual 
sphere  may  exist  in  the  visible  world,  but  imperceptible  by  the 
human  senses ;  that  as  through  the  natural  eye  we  see  the  phys¬ 
ical  world,  so  with  the  spiritual  eye,  were  it  opened,  we  should 
see  a  spiritual  world.  Milton  says  :  — 

“  Millions  of  spiritual  creatures  walk  the  earth 
Unseen,  both  when  we  wake  and  when  we  sleep.” 

This  is  a  poetical  conception.  But  poetical  conceptions  some¬ 
times  picture  the  deepest  truths.  This,  however,  is  widely  dif¬ 
ferent  from  the  conception  of  an  underlying  and  impersonal 
mind-stuff. 

That  which  underlies  the  finite  universe,  which  is  the  deepest 
reality  both  in  the  physical  and  the  spiritual  systems,  which  is  in 
fact  the  constitution  of  the  universe,  is  the  archetypal  thought 
eternal  in  the  absolute  Reason.  And  science,  as  it  passes  from 
perceptible  matter  to  the  ether,  from  molecules  to  atoms,  and 
thence  to  atoms  of  a  second  order,  has  entered  on  a  course  of 
thought  which  can  stop  nowhere  but  in  the  absolute  Reason, 
which  is  God.  The  only  ultimate  ground  on  which  the  finite 
mind  in  its  inquiries  can  rest  is  the  Reason  that  is  universal,  un¬ 
conditioned  and  eternal ;  it  is  the  truths,  the  laws,  the  ideals  of 
perfection  and  good,  eternal  and  archetypal  in  God,  the  eternal 
Reason,  and  the  eternal  wisdom  and  love  of  God  by  which  they 
are  progressively  expressed  and  realized  in  the  finite.  The  truths, 

laws  and  ideals,  the  wisdom  and  love  are  eternal  and  unchange- 

33 


514 


THE  SELF-RE  YELATION  OF  GOD. 


able.  The  finite  forms,  arrangements  and  sequences  in  which 
they  are  progressively  expressed  and  realized  are  variable.  It  is 
in  these  variable  arrangements  and  sequences  that  man’s  free  will 
finds  scope  for  action  and  that  miracles  are  possible. 

Hence  in  the  progressive  expression  of  the  divine  thought  there 
are  epochal  miracles,  in  which  a  new  and  higher  expression  of  the 
eternal  truths,  laws  and  ideals  is  attained  and  a  higher  order  of 
being  and  action  appears. 

And  in  connection  with  this  progressive  realization  of  the  ar¬ 
chetypal  thought,  incidental  miracles  wrought  by  men  are  possi¬ 
ble.  We  have  seen  that  the  natural  and  the  supernatural  are 
united  in  man,  and  that  the  action  of  his  rational  free  will  on  na¬ 
ture  is  essentially  the  same  in  kind  with  miraculous  action.  We 
call  the  effect  of  an  action  of  this  kind  a  miracle  only  when  it 
reveals  a  power  transcending  that  of  man  as  known  in  common 
experience.  But  man  in  his  progress  advances  beyond  himself. 
If  Newton  when  two  years  old  had  written  the  Principia,  it  would 
have  been  a  miracle.  It  was  no  miracle  to  write  it  in  his  mature 
years.  Is  there  potential  in  man  a  power  of  mind  over  matter, 
which,  in  an  analogous  way,  may  be  developed  with  the  progres¬ 
sive  development  of  man,  so  as  to  be  capable  of  doing  works  which 
done  in  his  present  immaturity  would  rightly  be  called  miracles  ? 
As  in  the  progress  of  Christ’s  kingdom  on  earth  all  man’s  powers 
become  more  fully  and  harmoniously  developed,  as  he  comes  into 
closer  union  with  God  in  the  life  of  faith  and  love  and  more 
receptive  of  the  divine  gifts,  as  thus  his  thought  and  will  are 
brought  more  into  harmony  with  the  constitution  and  powers  of 
the  universe,  it  is  conceivable  that  he  may  find  himself  in  the  ex¬ 
ercise  of  a  power  over  nature  which  we  should  now  regard  as 
miraculous.  It  would  only  be  the  essentially  miracle-working 
power  in  every  free  will  developed  in  unison  with  God’s  will  and 
revealing  itself  in  mightier  works.  The  miracles  of  prophets  and 
apostles  would  still  be  wonders  and  signs  as  well  as  mighty  works, 
because  so  far  in  advance  of  the  spiritual  development  of  man 
within  the  kingdom  of  Christ  in  their  time.  They  would  be  signs 
of  the  presence  and  gifts  of  God  and  a  prophecy  and  promise  of 
the  more  complete  development  to  come ;  “  solitary  early  flowers  ” 
revealing  the  power  of  the  returning  sun  already  quickening  the 
earth  and  giving  promise  of  summer.  And  our  Lord  said,  in  ref¬ 
erence  to  some  of  his  miracles :  “  Greater  works  than  these  shall 
ye  do.”  And  if  this  conception  should  be  realized  it  would  prove 
that  miracles  cause  no  break  in  the  continuity  of  nature,  that  the 


UNITY  AND  CONTINUITY  OF  THE  REVELATION. 


515 


supernatural  is  ever  present  and  directive  in  the  natural,  and  that 
Jesus  is  the  ideal  man  more  completely  than  we  have  been  wont 
to  suppose. 

II.  Unity  and  continuity  of  God’s  revelation  in  na¬ 
ture,  man  AND  Christ.  —  The  unity  and  continuity  of  nature 
and  the  supernatural,  the  unity  of  the  human  and  the  divine, 
are  further  disclosed  in  the  revelation  of  God  in  Christ.  As  in 
man  the  spiritual  and  supernatural  appears  in  the  physical,  so 
in  Christ  the  divine  appears  in  the  human.  And  in  this  higher 
stage  of  the  revelation  its  unity  and  continuity  are  not  inter¬ 
rupted. 

1.  Christ’s  coming  constitutes  a  new  epoch  in  the  progressive 
development  of  the  world  and  in  the  revelation  of  God  therein. 
The  universe,  so  far  as  we  know  it  in  the  history  of  this  earth, 
is  in  continual  development  and  progress  from  the  lower  to  the 
higher.  The  progress  is  marked  by  epochs  in  which  succes¬ 
sively  higher  orders  of  being  and  spheres  of  action  appear  and 
the  ever  immanent  God  makes  new  revelations  of  his  archetypal 
thought.  Such  epochs  are  the  beginning  of  motion,  the  introduc¬ 
tion  of  organic  life,  the  introduction  of  sensitivity,  the  introduc¬ 
tion  of  rational  personal  beings.  In  the  last  the  great  transition 
is  made  from  the  natural  to  the  supernatural,  and  the  moral  and 
spiritual  system  appears.  Then,  after  due  preparation  in  the  edu¬ 
cation  and  development  of  man,  in  the  fulness  of  time,  is  the 
great  epoch  in  which  God  comes  in  Christ  reconciling  the  world 
unto  himself,  and  therein  making  the  consummate  revelation  of 
what  he  is  in  his  relation  to  man  and  of  what  man  is  in  his  rela¬ 
tion  to  God,  disclosing  to  human  view  the  archetypal  principles 
and  laws  which  guide  God’s  action,  and  the  archetypal  ideals  and 
good  to  be  realized  in  the  history  and  destiny  of  man.  This  is 
the  great  revelation  of  God.  Whatever  may  be  said  of  the  pre¬ 
vious  epochs,  he  would  be  a  bold  skeptic  who  should  venture  to 
affirm  that  the  Christ  was  merely  a  natural  product  of  a  physical 
and  godless  evolution.  In  this  epoch  Christ  conies,  as  the  Head 
of  a  new  humanity,  bringing  the  divine  into  the  human  to  estab¬ 
lish  the  kingdom  of  heaven  on  the  earth,  to  quicken  men  by  a 
new  birth  of  the  Spirit,  to  lift  them  from  their  submergence  in 
the  life  of  nature  to  spiritual  life  in  union  with  God  in  faith  and 
love,  and  to  diffuse  and  perpetuate  among  them  the  Spirit  of  God 
with  all  heavenly  influences  to  draw  them  into  Christ’s  kingdom 
of  righteousness  and  peace  and  joy  in  the  Holy  Spirit.  And  we 
look  forward  to  another  epoch,  when  Christ  will  come  again  at 


516 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


the  consummation  of  the  work  of  redemption  and  the  close  of 
the  natural  life  and  earthly  history  of  man,  when  the  kingdom 
of  Christ  on  earth  will  be  completed  and  will  exist  with  all  who 
have  been  gathered  into  it  in  a  higher  order  of  life  and  in  a  new 
and  celestial  environment,  where  it  will  go  on  forever  in  ways  of 
glory  beyond  the  power  of  man  to  conceive. 

Thus  the  coming  of  the  Christ  is  the  central  epoch,  and  the 
Word  made  flesh  and  dwelling  among  us  is  the  central  power  in 
the  continuous  and  progressive  development  of  this  world  from 
its  primitive  homogeneous  matter  to  the  glory  of  the  new  heavens 
and  the  new  earth  wherein  dwelleth  righteousness. 

As  in  man  the  natural  and  the  supernatural  or  spiritual  are 
in  unity,  so  in  Christ  is  the  unity  of  the  human  and  the  divine. 
And  since  man  unites  the  natural  and  the  spiritual,  in  Christ 
is  consummated  the  unity  of  the  natural,  the  spiritual  and  the 
divine.  From  him  goes  forth  the  divine  Spirit,  invisible  but  bear¬ 
ing  the  divine  light  and  life  and  love,  to  touch  all  hearts  and  to 
unite  himself  in  perpetual  indwelling  with  every  man  who  opens 
his  heart  in  faith  to  receive  him.  So  in  the  new  era  introduced 
at  this  great  epoch  of  the  coming  of  God  in  Christ  reconciling 
the  world  unto  himself,  men  one  by  one  are  touched  by  the  Spirit 
bearing  the  heavenly  influences,  and  with  victorious  allurement, 
with  most  loving  and  sweet  force  of  persuasion,  drawn  into  the 
kingdom  of  Christ.1  And  in  the  consummation  of  this  progres¬ 
sive  revelation,  Christ’s  earthly  kingdom  is  itself  glorified  in  the 
heavenly. 

2.  Christ  brings  the  divine  into  the  human  as  an  abiding  power 
of  illumination,  renovation  and  reconciliation.  The  divine  abides 
in  the  human  in  the  Spirit  of  Christ.  So  in  previous  epochs  the 
personal,  after  it  appears,  abides  and  works  in  organic  nature, 
and  the  organic  life  abides  and  works  in  the  inorganic. 

Christ  brings  the  divine  into  the  human  as  a  power  of  film 
mination.  In  the  Bible,  Wisdom  is  personified  as  present  in  the 
formation  of  the  world,  directing  it  “as  a  master  -  workman.”  2 
The  evidence  of  the  presence  and  direction  of  this  master-work¬ 
man  is  found  in  nature  by  science.  It  is  the  declaration  of  this 

1  “  Victrix  delectatio.”  —  Augustine.  “  Amabili  et  suavissima  persuasionis 
necessitate.  .  .  .  Ut  nulla  vis  major  amore,  nec  fortior  necessitas  charitate, 
quae  et  instar  olei  effusa  in  nobis,  suavissima  delectatione  nos  perfundit,  et 
instar  catenae  fortissimae  nos  constringit.,,  (II.  Cor.  v.  14.)  —  Turrettine,  Inst 
Loc.  15,  Quaest.  4,  xviii.,  xxi. 

2  Prov.  chap.  viii.  30. 


UNITY  AND  CONTINUITY  OF  THE  REVELATION.  517 


wisdom  in  nature  which  constitutes  science.  Science  rests  on  the 
assumption  that  the  reason  whose  master-workmanship  is  revealed 
in  nature  is  the  same  in  kind  as  the  reason  in  man  that  discovers 
it  in  nature  ;  that  man  participates  in  the  light  of  the  Reason  that 
is  universal.  When  God  comes  into  humanity  in  Christ,  the  eter¬ 
nal  Reason  reveals  itself  in  him  ;  the  light,  which  lighteth  every 
man,  comes  into  the  world  in  Jesus,  who  himself  is  man.  And 
Paul  says  that  the  spiritual  light  which  shines  on  us  from  God 
is  through  Christ :  u  Seeing  it  is  God,  who  said,  Light  shall  shine 
out  of  darkness,  who  shined  in  our  hearts,  to  give  the  light  of  the 
knowledge  of  the  glory  of  God  in  the  face  of  Jesus  Christ.” 

Christ  brings  the  divine  into  the  human  not  merely  to  illu¬ 
minate,  but  also  to  renovate  and  reconcile.  From  him  proceeds 
the  Spirit  as  the  quickener  of  spiritual  life.  Thus,  from  Christ, 
the  light,  the  life  and  the  love  of  God  penetrate  and  transform 
humanity. 

This  is  strikingly  set  forth  in  the  First  Epistle  of  John.  He 
announces  as  his  theme  the  eternal  Logos  that  came  into  the 
world  in  Christ.  He  says  that  he  presents  this  to  them,  that 
all  to  whom  he  writes  may  be,  like  himself,  in  fellowship  with 
this  divine  being.  He  says,  “  Our  fellowship  is  with  the  Father 
and  with  his  Son  Jesus  Christ.”  We  are  brought  back  to  our 
normal  condition  of  union  with  God  through  Christ  by  partici¬ 
pating  in  the  influence  of  the  divine  Spirit  carrying  the  energy 
of  redeeming  grace  through  the  world.  John  proceeds  to  declare 
that  in  Christ  the  divine  Light,  the  divine  Life  and  the  divine 
Love  are  penetrating  and  pervading  humanity  to  bring  man  into 
fellowship  with  God  by  participating  in  these.  The  eternal  Rea¬ 
son  that  lighteth  every  man  is  come  into  the  world  in  Christ, 
and  through  him  every  mind  darkened  by  sin  may  participate  in 
the  divine  Light  and  see  all  things  as  they  are  related  to  God 
and  illuminated  by  the  light  of  the  eternal  Reason.  “God  is  light 
and  in  him  is  no  darkness  at  all.  If  we  walk  in  the  light,  as 
he  is  in  the  light,  we  have  fellowship  one  with  another  and  the 
blood  of  Jesus  his  Son  cleanseth  us  from  all  sin.”  Christ  is  also 
“the  eternal  life,  which  was  with  the  Father  and  was  manifested 
unto  us.”  And  from  him  this  Life  goes  out  into  the  world,  a  life- 
giving  energy  in  which  also  we  participate  :  “  This  is  the  prom¬ 
ise  which  he  promised  us,  even  the  life  eternal.”  In  him  also 
the  divine  Love  is  energizing  in  the  world  to  bring  all  men  to 
participate  in  it  and  so  to  be  animated  with  a  love  like  the  love 
of  God  revealed  in  Christ.  And  thus  partaking  in  the  divine 


518 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OE  GOD. 


Light  and  Life  and  Love,  men  become  children  of  God  by  a  spir¬ 
itual  and  divine  birth,  and  constitute  a  new  humanity  as  children 
of  God  under  the  Headship  of  Christ.  And  so  the  separation 
from  God  is  ended,  and  in  union  with  him  men  have  sure  hope 
that  they  shall  realize  in  themselves  the  ideal  of  humanity  set 
before  them  in  Christ.  “  Behold  what  manner  of  love  the  Father 
hath  bestowed  upon  us  that  we  should  be  called  children  of  God ; 
and  such  we  are.  .  .  .  Beloved,  now  are  we  children  of  God,  and 
it  is  not  yet  made  manifest  what  we  shall  be.  But  we  know  that 
when  he  shall  be  manifested,  we  shall  be  like  him  ;  for  we  shall 
see  him  even  as  he  is.”  In  Christ  are  the  eternal  Light,  Life  and 
Love  of  God,  entering  and  penetrating  humanity  to  seek  and  to 
save  the  lost. 

8.  Christ,  thus  bringing  the  divine  into  the  human,  in  illumi¬ 
nating  and  renovating  man,  takes  up  and  vitalizes  all  spiritual 
truth  and  motives  of  other  religions  and  of  the  ethnic  philos¬ 
ophies. 

The  line  of  divine  revelation  which  issued  directly  in  his  coming 
was  in  the  history  of  Israel.  The  religion  of  Israel  looked  forward 
to  the  epoch  of  his  coming  with  ever  brightening  prophecy  and 
promise.  It  was  the  same  course  of  God’s  redemptive  action  in 
its  earlier  stage  preparing  for  the  epoch  when  the  Christ  should 
come. 

God  does  not  reveal  himself  only  in  the  history  recorded  in  the 
Bible.  He  reveals  himself  also  in  the  consciousness  of  men,  in 
the  constitution  and  course  of  nature,  and  in  the  constitution  and 
history  of  man.  His  work  of  preparing  men  for  Christ’s  coming 
was  not  in  the  history  of  Israel  alone,  but  in  the  history  of  all 
nations,  and  in  their  philosophies  and  their  religions.  This  is 
assumed  in  all  the  numerous  essays  and  discourses  on  the  prep¬ 
aration  of  the  world  at  the  Christian  era  for  the  introduction  of 
Christianity.  And  in  fact  the  Gentiles  were  found  to  be  at  least 
as  ready  to  receive  Christ  as  were  the  Jews. 

In  polytheism  the  minds  of  men  were  opening  more  and  more 
to  the  recognition  of  a  divinity  in  the  course  of  nature  and  of 
human  life  and  history  to  the  minutest  details.  So  Kant  said  that 
even  in  the  blindest  polytheism  a  spark  of  monotheism  shimmers 
through,  to  the  full  recognition  of  which,  not  primarily  reflection 
and  deep  speculation,  but  only  the  gradual  progress  of  the  com¬ 
mon  intelligence  of  man,  conducts.1  If  science  is  to  comprehend 
all  things  in  the  unity  of  a  scientific  system,  monotheism  is  its 

1  Kritik  der  reinen  Vernunft,  p.  455. 


UNITY  AND  CONTINUITY  OF  THE  REVELATION.  519 


necessary  basis.  Polytheism  was  a  preparation  for  it.  When  the 
sun  and  stars,  the  mountains,  the  ocean  and  the  air,  when  every 
part  and  power  of  nature  had  its  god,  the  polytheism  revealed 
the  monotheistic  belief  that  all  nature  is  pervaded  by  the  divine 
and  under  divine  control.  When  polytheism  regarded  its  deities 
as  deified  men,  when  in  its  latest  periods  in  the  Roman  Empire  it 
had  a  several  deity  to  preside  over  every  quality,  condition  and  act 
of  men,  every  stage  in  organic  growth,  every  form  and  manifesta¬ 
tion  of  physical  force,  this  was  a  more  full  recognition  of  the  mon¬ 
otheistic  principle  and  could  not  be  far  from  recognizing  the  one 
omnipresent  God.  When  the  Hindu  says  that  he  acknowledges 
300,000,000  gods,  it  is  the  expression,  in  polytheistic  form,  of  the 
monotheistic  principle  that  God  is  everywhere,  and  has  all  wis¬ 
dom,  all  virtue,  all  power.  As  all  nature  and  all  mankind  began 
to  be  comprehended  in  the  unity  of  a  scientific  and  reasonable 
system,  the  divinity  that  rules  in  the  universe  could  no  longer  be 
regarded  as  many,  but  as  one,  as  the  universal  Reason  endowed 
with  all  wisdom  and  all  moral  perfection  and  all  might.  In  India 
and  the  East,  and  through  Stoicism  in  Greece  and  Rome,  philos- 
ophy,  groping  for  this  unity  and  universality  of  the  divine,  had 
thought  it  might  be  found  in  pantheism.  But  this  gave  only  a 
dead  unity  without  conscious  personality  or  free  spiritual  life  in 
God  or  man.  The  unity  was  found  in  the  one  living  God,  already 
known  in  Israel,  and  brought  into  humanity  in  Christ,  the  source 
of  spiritual  life  for  all  men. 

Thus  all  that  is  true  in  polytheism  is  comprehended  by  Chris¬ 
tianity,  into  which  it  faded  like  the  many  stars  into  the  one  light 
of  the  rising  sun.  Monotheism  was  the  legitimate  issue  of  the 
progress  of  the  human  mind  through  the  many-starred  night  of 
polytheism.  But  in  fact  the  morning  dawned  on  the  world  only 
when,  in  the  coming  of  Christ,  “  The  Sun  of  Righteousness  ”  arose. 

Mr.  Buckle  anticipates  a  millennial  issue  of  human  progress 
when  population  will  be  more  and  more  concentrated  in  cities, 
and  thus  be  shut  out  from  the  hills  and  valleys,  the  rivers,  the 
forests  and  the  fields,  and  even  from  the  broad  sky,  and  occu¬ 
pied  solely  in  business ;  and  that  then  all  superstition,  that  is,  all 
belief  in  God  and  the  supernatural,  will  be  extirpated,  and  man 
will  be  blessed  in  a  wholly  artificial  life.  This  implies  that  the 
works  of  man  will  shut  out  the  works  of  God,  and  Gradgrind 
will  reign  unmolested  and  supreme.  This  would  be  progress  re¬ 
versed.  It  would  be  night  swallowing  both  sun  and  stars  in  total 
darkness. 


520 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


The  insufficiency  of  the  ethnic  religions  and  philosophies  to 
meet  man’s  spiritual  wants  awakened  the  thoughtful  to  a  con¬ 
sciousness  of  their  need  of  further  revelation  of  God  —  a  con¬ 
sciousness  pathetically  set  forth  by  Socrates,  Plato,  Cicero,  Sen¬ 
eca  and  others.  The  truths  respecting  God  and  his  relations  to 
man,  recognized  in  the  ethnic  religions  and  philosophies  and 
taken  up  in  Christianity,  are  some  of  them  of  fundamental  im¬ 
portance  and  none  are  insignificant.  In  these  religions  and  con¬ 
nected  with  them  men  have  learned  the  existence  of  supernatural 
beings,  of  man’s  relation  to  a  divinity,  of  moral  law,  of  sin,  and 
of  the  need  of  redemption.  If  all  ideas  and  influences  of  this 
kind  had  been  erased  from  the  minds  of  men  and  their  minds 
left  an  entire  blank  respecting  them,  then  they  would  have  be¬ 
come  a  second  time  children  or  savages,  and  would  need  anew 
a  long  education  and  development  before  they  could  understand 
and  receive  the  significance  of  God’s  revelation  in  Christ. 

The  different  nations  of  antiquity  contributed  severally  to  the 
education  and  progress  of  the  race  :  as  Greece  gave  men  art, 
poetry,  philosophy ;  Rome  gave  political  law  and  organization  ; 
Phoenicia  letters  ;  Egypt,  Babylon,  Persia  and  other  nations  helped 
in  the  development  of  civilization.  This  being  the  fact,  we  may 
properly  suppose  that  God  was  working  in  and  through  these  in 
preparing  for  the  revelation  in  Christ  and  the  development  of 
his  kingdom  to  a  spiritual  and  universal  kingdom.  And  whatever 
of  truth  and  spiritual  motive  was  in  their  religions  and  philos¬ 
ophies  was  taken  up  and  vitalized  in  Christianity.  The  Christian 
Fathers  declare  that  God  was  preparing  mankind  for  Christ  by 
the  ethnic  philosophy  and  culture  as  really,  if  not  as  directly, 
as  by  Israel  and  its  prophets.  Justin  Martyr  says  :  “  The  whole 
race  of  men  had  part  in  the  Logos  and  those  who  lived  in  har¬ 
mony  with  reason  are  Christians,  even  though  they  have  been  re¬ 
garded  as  atheists  ;  as,  among  the  Greeks,  Socrates,  Herakleitus, 
and  men  like  them.”  “  Whatever  things  have  been  rightly  said 
among  all  men  are  the  property  of  us  Christians.”  1 

Clement  of  Alexandria  saw  in  the  Greek  philosophy  an  educa¬ 
tion  of  mankind  running  parallel  with  the  Hebrew  prophecy,  and 
consequently  in  Christianity  the  growth  of  the  seeds  of  truth  con¬ 
tained  in  each.  “Philosophy  was  a  schoolmaster  to  bring  the 
Hellenic  mind  to  Christ  as  the  law  was  to  the  Hebrews.”  “  Let 
a  man  milk  the  sheep’s  milk  if  he  need  sustenance ;  let  him  shear 

1  First  Apology,  chap.  xlvi. ;  Second  Apology,  cliap.  xiii.  “  In  harmony  with 
reason  ”  is  in  the  original  fiera  \6yov. 


UNITY  AND  CONTINUITY  OF  THE  REVELATION.  521 


the  wool  if  he  need  clothing.  And  in  this  way  let  me  produce 
the  fruit  of  Greek  erudition.  .  .  .  Philosophy,  a  divine  gift  to 
the  Greeks.  .  .  .  Before  the  advent  of  our  Lord  philosophy  was 
necessary  to  the  Greeks  for  righteousness.  And  now  it  becomes 
conducive  to  piety  ;  being  a  kind  of  preparatory  training  to  those 
who  attain  faith  through  demonstration.  God  is  the  cause  of  all 
good  things ;  but  of  some  primarily,  as  of  the  Old  and  the  New 
Testament ;  of  others  by  consequence,  as  of  philosophy.  Per¬ 
chance  philosophy  was  given  to  the  Greeks  directly  and  primarily 
till  the  Lord  should  call  the  Greeks.  .  .  .  But  all  (these  philos¬ 
ophies)  are,  in  my  opinion,  illuminated  by  the  dawn  of  the  Light 
(of  the  Logos).  .  .  .  There  is  then  in  philosophy,  though  stolen 
as  the  fire  by  Prometheus,  a  slender  spark  capable  of  being  fanned 
into  a  flame,  a  trace  of  wisdom,  and  an  impulse  from  God.”  1  And 
Augustine  held  that  the  religion  then  called  the  Christian  had  in 
its  substance  been  previously  with  the  ancients  and  had  not  been 
wanting  from  the  beginning  of  human  history.  He  says  :  44  More¬ 
over  if  those  who  are  called  philosophers,  and  especially  the  Pla- 
tonists,  have  said  aught  that  is  true  and  in  harmony  with  our 
faith,  we  are  not  only  not  to  shrink  from  it,  but  to  claim  it  for 
our  own  use  from  those  who  have  unlawful  possession  of  it.  .  .  . 
These  truths  are,  so  to  speak,  their  gold  and  silver,  which  they 
did  not  create  themselves,  but  dug  out  of  the  mines  of  God’s 
providence  which  are  everywhere  scattered  abroad.”2  And  Basil 
compares  Christians  to  bees  which  gather  the  honey  of  all  flow¬ 
ers.  And  here  is  the  truth  in  Bishop  Butler’s  words :  44  Chris¬ 
tianity  is  a  republication  of  natural  religion.”  3 

Adolf  Harnack  says  :  44  Christianity  has  throughout  sucked 
the  marrow  of  the  ancient  world  and  assimilated  it.  .  .  .  The 
strength  and  greatness  of  the  gospel  has  consisted  in  this,  that 
it  could  ever  attract  to  itself  and  preserve  everything  worthy 
of  life  which  the  ages  possessed.  Just  through  this  power  of 
assimilation  and  expansion  the  Gospel  has  established  its  right 
to  be  the  universal  religion,  and  has  proved  itself  the  most  con¬ 
servative  of  all  forces,  because  securing  endurance  to  everything 
worthy  to  endure.”4  If  Christianity  adopted  festival  days  of  the 
heathen,  it  was  only  to  divest  them  of  their  heathenism  and  to 
consecrate  them  to  Christ.  Through  human  imperfection  it  has 

1  Stromata,  bk.  i.  chaps.  1,  2,  5,  13,  17. 

2  Christian  Doctrine,  bk.  ii.  chap.  40. 

8  Analogy,  part  ii.  chap.  i. 

4  Contemporary  Review,  Aug.  1886,  p.  237. 


522 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


sometimes  taken  up  temporarily  elements  foreign  and  enfeebling. 
But  its  power  to  absorb,  assimilate  and  consecrate  to  Christ  what¬ 
ever  of  truth  and  excellence  was  in  the  ethnic  religion,  philos¬ 
ophy  and  life,  is  one  great  evidence  that  it  is  divine. 

And  equally  Christ  takes  up  and  vitalizes  all  those  great  ideas 
which  the  skepticism  of  our  day  would  substitute  for  God  as  the 
objects  of  religious  worship. 

Mr.  Spencer  thinks  that  religion  can  never  pass  away  because 
man  must  always  be  confronted  with  the  mystery  of  things.  But 
the  merely  mysterious  and  unknowable  can  never  be  the  object  of 
religious  trust,  worship  and  service.  And  always  the  larger  the 
area  of  the  visible  and  known,  the  larger  the  horizon  of  the  in¬ 
visible  and  unknown.  Christ  in  his  revelation  of  God  awakens  a 
consciousness  of  his  mysterious  and  transcendent  grandeur  which 
no  agnosticism  can  impart. 

Mr.  Harrison,  on  the  contrary,  insists  rightly  that  the  personal 
and  spiritual  are  essential  in  the  divine.  As  the  object  of  re¬ 
ligious  worship,  he  proposes  man,  with  all  which  is  tender,  noble 
and  grand  in  his  history.  With  great  power  he  sets  forth  the 
Great  Human  Being,  the  ideal  representative  of  all  men  in  their 
unity  as  mankind,  of  all  excellence  in  humanity  which  history 
has  revealed  or  which  is  possible  to  man,  as  the  object  of  adora¬ 
tion,  the  source  of  inspiration  and  energy,  and  the  ideal  end  on 
the  realization  of  which  in  humanity  all  human  aspiration  and  en¬ 
ergy  should  be  concentrated.  He  says  :  “  Religion  in  its  proper 
full  sense  means  the  state  of  unity  and  concentration  which  results 
when  our  intellectual,  moral  and  active  life  are  all  made  one  by 
the  presence  of  some  great  Principle,  in  which  we  believe,  whom 
we  love  and  adore,  and  to  which  our  acts  are  submitted,  so  that 
the  perpetual  sense  of  our  dependence  on  that  power  goes  deep 
down  into  all  we  think,  or  feel,  or  do.  .  .  .  To  have  religion  in 
any  true  sense  is  to  have  peace.”  1 

Religion  demands  all  this.  But  the  Great  Human  Being  can 
never  satisfy  the  demand.  It  has  no  intelligence  to  hear  our 
cries  and  no  power  to  help.  It  has  no  personality,  no  conscious 
being.  It  is  a  mere  abstraction,  a  subjective  creation  of  our  own 
thought.  It  is  as  far  from  being  an  object  of  religious  worship 
as  is  the  Unknowable.  And  in  the  worship  of  it,  however  ele¬ 
vated  the  admiration  for  all  which  is  great  and  noble  in  human 
history,  and  however  earnest  the  insistence  on  the  obligation  to 
love  man  and  to  consecrate  life  to  his  service  in  the  endeavor 
1  The  Creeds:  Old  and  New,  Nineteenth  Century,  Nov.  1880. 


UNITY  AND  CONTINUITY  OF  THE  REVELATION.  528 

to  realize  in  him  his  highest  excellence,  Christianity  is  beyond 
all  comparison  superior  in  these  very  particulars.  I  will  not 
say  Christianity  takes  up  these  qualities  from  this  worship  of 
humanity,  for  unquestionably  all  which  is  worthy  and  inspiring 
in  this  worship  was  derived,  however  unconsciously,  from  Chris¬ 
tianity.  God  is  revealed  in  Christ  reconciling  the  world  to  him¬ 
self,  redeeming  man  from  sin  to  the  knowledge  of  God  and  to 
union  with  him,  educating  and  developing  him  to  the  realization 
of  his  ideal  as  set  forth  in  Christ,  pervading  the  world  with  the 
influence  of  the  divine  Spirit,  and  progressively  transforming 
society  into  the  kingdom  of  God.  This  revelation  of  God  is  also 
the  highest  possible  revelation  of  the  capacities  and  possibilities 
of  humanity,  of  the  worth  of  man  and  the  sacredness  of  his 
rights,  of  the  obligation  of  all  to  live  in  the  love  and  service  of 
man,  and  of  his  capacity  for  wise  thoughts  and  great  deeds  and 
noble  character.  It  is  the  revelation  of  man  to  himself  as  really 
as  it  is  the  revelation  of  God  to  man.  In  Christ  is  the  ideal  of 
humanity  in  a  human  person  and  a  human  life,  the  law  of  love 
revealed  in  the  concrete ;  in  him  also  is  the  love  of  God  embodied 
and  revealed  in  a  living  man  and  a  human  life.  Here  are  at  once 
the  law,  the  motive  and  inspiration  to  obey  it,  and  the  divine 
grace  seeking  man  in  his  sins  to  inspire  and  quicken,  to  guide 
and  strengthen  him  in  the  way  of  life,  and  the  divine  promise 
stimulating  hope  and  courage  and  giving  assurance,  to  all  who 
seek,  that  they  shall  find  the  realization  in  themselves  of  the 
ideal  of  manhood  presented  before  them  in  Christ.  It  is  true 
that  God  reveals  himself  in  humanity.  But  this  revelation  can 
never  be  complete,  for  the  history  of  humanity  will  never  be 
completed.  In  Christ,  the  ideal  man,  the  whole  contents  of  that 
revelation  of  God  in  humanity,  are  summed  up  in  brief.  He  is 
the  ideal  of  man  in  union  with  God  and  the  recipient  of  his 
spirit  and  grace.  He  is  the  ideal  of  man  in  the  perfection  of 
his  being:  “  When  he  shall  appear,  we  shall  be  like  him.”  He  is 
the  ideal  man,  loving  all  with  a  divine  love,  coming  not  to  be 
ministered  unto  but  to  minister,  taking  the  form  of  a  servant, 
and  spending  his  energies  working  with  the  Father  to  save  man 
from  sin,  to  develop  him  to  his  true  manhood  in  the  likeness  of 
God,  and  to  build  human  society  into  a  kingdom  of  righteous¬ 
ness  and  good-will.  He  is  the  ideal  of  man  in  his  subjection  to 
privation,  suffering  and  death,  in  his  conflict  with  sin,  his  tri¬ 
umph  over  all  the  powers  of  evil,  and  his  ascension  glorified  to 
the  life  immortal.  In  Handel’s  Messiah  poetry  and  music  com- 


524 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


bine  to  give  expression  to  the  significance  of  this  revelation  of 
God  in  Christ  and  of  this  revelation  in  Christ  of  what  humanity 
is  and  is  to  be.  “  He  shall  reign  forever  and  ever.”  Neither 
music  nor  poetry,  neither  philosophy  nor  religion,  neither  law 
nor  gospel  can  transcend  this.  It  is  the  highest  consummation 
of  thought,  feeling  and  life ;  it  is  the  union  of  the  human  with 
the  divine.  In  worshiping  God  in  Christ  we  worship  him  in 
humanity.  The  Christian  has  in  Christ  and  God’s  redemption 
of  man  real  ground  for  reverence  for  humanity  not  to  be  com¬ 
pared  with  any  possible  reverence  for  the  fiction  which  the  pos¬ 
itivists  worship. 

The  agnostic  and  the  positivist  each  presents  a  one-sided  and 
erroneous  view,  and  therefore  each  easily  and  triumphantly  re¬ 
futes  the  other.  The  agnostic  affirms  that  the  Unknowable  is  the 
absolute  Being,  but  denies  all  qualities  of  personal  Spirit.  The 
positivist  affirms  the  personal  and  ethical  contents  of  the  idea  of 
God,  but  recognizes  them  only  in  humanity  and  denies  the  abso¬ 
lute  Being.  The  one  has  the  contents  without  the  being ;  the 
other  has  the  being  without  the  contents.  The  synthesis  of  the 
two  would  give  us  the  idea  of  God.  Christian  theism  gives  this 
synthesis,  and  thus  in  the  personal  God  finds  the  substantial  real¬ 
ity  in  unity  for  these  two  ideas. 

Professor  Seeley  of  England  suggests  enthusiasm  for  physical 
science  as  an  adequate  substitute  for  religion.  But  scientific 
investigation  is  itself  incited  by  the  necessity  of  seeking  the 
causes,  laws  and  rationale  of  things,  which  necessarily  carries 
the  thought  to  God.  Interest  in  nature,  admiration  of  its  order 
and  beauty,  reverence  for  the  universe  as  the  revelation  of  God 
are  stimulated  and  nurtured  by  religious  faith. 

Matthew  Arnold  conceives  of  religion  as  morality  lit  up  with 
emotion.  But  Christ  is  the  most  complete  revelation  of  the 
moral  law  ;  and  by  his  teachings  and  work,  his  life,  death  and 
resurrection,  himself  more  than  all  others  has  awakened  the 
emotion  and  enthusiasm  which  light  up  morality. 

Philosophy  also  claims  to  be  the  guide  of  life.  Men  have 
sought  in  it  a  substitute  for  religion.  But  for  all  man’s  spirit¬ 
ual  needs  it  is  inadequate.  And  whatever  of  spiritual  truth 
and  motive  is  in  it  Christ  takes  up  and  vitalizes  in  the  Chris¬ 
tian  life. 

Skeptics  commonly  write  as  if  it  was  indisputable  that  Chris¬ 
tianity  rests  only  on  arbitrary  miraculous  action  to  the  exclusion 
of  philosophy.  They  also  claim  that  they  find  more  consolation 


UNITY  AND  CONTINUITY  OF  THE  REVELATION.  525 


and  help  in  philosophy  than  in  the  Christian  religion.  Mr. 
Hennell,  in  his  Inquiry  concerning  the  Origin  of  Christianity, 
called  Jesus  “  A  Jewish  Philosopher.”  Of  this  George  Eliot 
says:  “To  say  ‘Jewish  philosopher,’  seems  almost  like  saying  a 
round  square ;  yet  these  two  words  appear  to  me  the  truest  de¬ 
scription  of  Jesus.”1  She  expresses  very  strongly  her  perception 
of  the  contrast  between  the  Jew  and  the  philosopher.  Yet  she 
conceives  of  Jesus  as  taking  both  characters  into  his  own.  Both 
of  these  writers  seem  entirely  unaware  that  Paul  had  presented 
so  similar  a  description  of  the  wonderful  comprehensiveness  of 
Jesus,  and  that  they  were  using,  in  opposition  to  what  they  took 
for  Christianity,  a  remarkable  conception  of  Christ  which  is  em¬ 
phatically  set  forth  in  Christianity  itself.2 

In  the  first  glow  of  her  departure  from  her  early  faith  George 
Eliot  thought  she  had  found  more  than  a  substitute  for  Christ. 
Roused  by  some  remark  of  Mr.  Bray  on  the  beneficial  influence 
of  evangelical  beliefs,  she  said :  “  I  say  it  now  and  I  say  it  once 
for  all,  that  I  am  influenced  in  my  own  conduct  at  the  present 
time  by  far  higher  considerations  and  by  a  nobler  idea  of  duty 
than  I  ever  had  while  I  held  the  evangelical  beliefs.”  And  about 
that  time  she  was  thinking  of  writing  an  essay  on  the  superiority 
of  the  consolations  of  philosophy  to  those  of  Christianity.  Yet 
philosophy  without  religion  is  necessarily  one-sided,  incomplete, 
and  inadequate  to  the  spiritual  needs.  While  claiming  to  dis¬ 
close  to  man  the  all-comprehending  unity  of  the  universe  and 

1  Life  by  J.  W.  Cross,  chap.  iii.  In  lier  letters  and  diary  as  given  in  her 
Life,  Miss  Evans  unconsciously  reveals  the  fact  that  her  religion  had  been 
exceedingly  narrow  and  superficial.  While  so  many,  who  have  been  con¬ 
strained  of  late  to  yield  to  the  currrent  skepticism,  have  expressed  deep  sorrow 
at  being  obliged  to  give  up  their  Christian  faith,  Miss  Evans  exults  in  a  sense 
of  liberation.  She  also  says  that,  while  evangelical,  she  had  at  one  time  sacri¬ 
ficed  the  cultivation  of  her  intellect  and  a  proper  regard  to  her  personal  ap¬ 
pearance.  “ I  used  to  go  about  like  an  owl  to  the  great  disgust  of  my  brother; 
and  I  would  have  denied  him  what  I  now  see  to  have  been  lawful  amusements.” 
She  speaks  of  the  suffering  of  childhood  from  “colic  and  whooping-cough  and 
dread  of  ghosts,  to  say  nothing  of  hell  and  Satan,  and  an  offended  Deity  in 
the  sky,  who  was  angry  when  I  wanted  too  much  plum-cake.”  She  speaks  of 
her  soul  “  as  just  liberated  from  the  giant’s  bed  of  dogmas  on  which  it  has 
been  racked  and  stretched  ever  since  it  began  to  think.”  In  reading  her 
diary  and  letters  it  seems  to  me  that  what  she  had  renounced  was  a  restraint 
and  constraint,  a  terror,  gloom  and  asceticism,  which  have  no  place  in  the 
faith  and  love,  the  hope  and  joy,  the  genial  interest  in  life  and  humanity 
which  belong  to  the  religion  of  Christ;  and  that  she  failed  to  recognize  these 
latter  as  essentially  Christian. 

2  I.  Cor.  i.  22-24. 


526  THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 

the  highest  ends  of  his  being,  to  develop  his  highest  capacities 
and  powers  and  to  give  satisfaction  and  scope  for  their  highest 
energy,  it  overlooks  broad  areas  of  reality  and  truth  and  has  no 
quickening  touch  for  man’s  highest  spiritual  capacities  and 
powers.  And  presently  the  philosophy  itself  is  found  to  be 
breaking  down  into  universal  skepticism.  This  George  Eliot 
found  out  in  her  own  experience.  Speaking  of  “  the  first  im¬ 
pulse  of  a  young  and  generous  mind  ”  when  liberated  from  the 
“giant's  bed  ”  of  evangelical  “  dogmas,”  she  says:  “  But  a  year 
or  two  of  reflection  and  the  experience  of  our  own  miserable 
weakness,  which  will  ill  afford  to  part  even  with  the  crutch  of 
superstition,  must  I  think  effect  a  change.  Speculative  truth 
begins  to  appear  but  a  shadow  of  individual  minds.”  1 

Her  experience  that  even  the  crutch  of  so-called  superstition 
is  more  helpful  than  the  self-sufficiency  of  a  godless  philosophy 
has  been  a  common  experience  in  the  history  of  unbelief  from  age 
to  age. 

Thus  Christ  takes  up  the  spiritual  truths  and  motives  in  all 
the  religions  and  philosophies  of  mankind  and  assimilates  and 
vitalizes  them  in  the  divine  and  spiritual  power  with  which  he 
is  renovating  men  in  the  new  spiritual  birth  and  life,  and  thus 
bringing  upon  the  natural  life  of  man  the  new  humanity  in  which 
the  spiritual  predominates  over  the  natural,  of  which  he  is  the 
head,  and  of  which  he  is  constituting  his  kingdom  of  righteous¬ 
ness  and  peace. 

This  comprehensiveness  of  Christianity  was  well  expressed  by 
Henry  More,  in  the  seventeenth  century :  — 

“  The  true  religion  sprung  from  God  above, 

Is,  like  her  fountain,  full  of  charity; 

Embracing  all  things  with  a  tender  love, 

Full  of  good-will  and  meek  expectancy; 

Full  of  true  justice  and  sure  verity 

In  voice  and  heart;  free,  large,  even  infinite; 

Not  wedged  in  straight  particularity, 

But  grasping  all  in  her  vast  active  sprite. 

Bright  lamp  of  God,  oh,  that  all  could  joy 
In  thy  pure  light.” 

4.  In  thus  bringing  the  divine  into  the  human  as  an  abiding 
power  of  illumination  and  renovation  and  appropriating  and  vital¬ 
izing  all  spiritual  truth  and  motive  in  redeeming  men  from  sin, 
Christ  reveals  the  true  significance  and  dignity  of  human  life,  the 
worth  of  man  and  his  highest  destiny,  otherwise  but  dimly  known,* 

1  Life,  chaps,  ii.  and  iii. 


UNITY  AND  CONTINUITY  OF  THE  REVELATION.  527 


and  he  is  also  the  central  source  of  the  spiritual  influence  which 
is  quickening  men  to  seek  the  realization  of  this  high  destiny  for 
themselves  and  for  all  men. 

If  the  life  of  nature  in  man  is  shut  up  within  itself,  if  his  good 
is  to  be  found  only  in  getting  and  self-indulgence,  in  the  grati¬ 
fication  of  desires,  then,  as  has  already  been  shown,  pessimism  is 
inevitably  the  true  theory  of  human  life.  For  the  desires  are  in 
their  essence  unrest  and  uneasiness  in  the  sense  of  want,  and  they 
grow  by  what  they  feed  on  ;  and  man  has  spiritual  ideas  and  as¬ 
pirations  which  stretch  beyond  the  life  of  nature  and  seek  their 
objects  in  the  spiritual  and  the  divine.  Atheism  shuts  man  into 
the  life  of  nature  and  shuts  him  away  from  the  spiritual  and 
the  divine.  It  can  show  no  end,  which  reason  can  judge  worthy, 
for  the  existence  of  humanity.  Physicus  has  recorded  an  appall¬ 
ing  description  of  the  darkness  and  desolation  it  brings  on  human 
hopes.  After  speaking  of  his  own  former  faith  in  God,  now  lost, 
he  says  :  “  But  now,  how  changed  !  Never  in  the  history  of  man 

has  so  terrific  a  calamitv  befallen  the  race  as  that  which  all  who 

«/ 

look  may  now  behold  advancing  as  a  deluge,  black  with  destruc¬ 
tion,  resistless  in  might,  uprooting  our  most  cherished  hopes,  en¬ 
gulfing  our  most  precious  creed  and  burying  our  highest  life  in 
mindless  desolation.  .  .  .  The  flood-gates  of  infidelity  are  open 
and  Atheism  overwhelming  is  upon  us.”  1  In  its  coming  it  has 
brought  with  it  a  remarkable  development  of  pessimism,  not  only 
as  a  sentiment  or  as  poetry,  but  in  the  form  of  philosophy.  The 
two  religions  which  by  common  consent  stand  highest  on  the 
scale  after  Christianity  are  Mohammedism  and  Buddhism.  The 
latter  sinks  us  in  the  slough  of  pantheism,  and  its  necessary  prac¬ 
tical  issue  is  pessimism.  The  former  is  monotheistic.  But  its 
God  approximates  closely  to  a  fate  ;  it  knows  little  of  the  high 
spiritual  significance  of  the  life  of  faith  and  love  ;  and  even  in 
the  future  world  its  heaven  is  scarcely  of  a  higher  order  than  a 
life  of  selfish  and  sensuous  indulgence,  not  the  realm  of  perfect 
and  universal  love. 

It  is  the  Christ  alone  who  reveals  the  true  significance  of  hu¬ 
manity  and  its  highest  possibilities  and  noblest  destiny.  And 
through  him  come  the  spiritual  agencies  and  motives  which 
quicken  men  to  the  new  spiritual  life  and  bring  them  to  concen¬ 
trate  their  energies  on  the  service  of  God  and  man  in  the  life  of 
universal  love. 

He  meets  all  man’s  spiritual  needs  by  bringing  him  to  union 
1  A  Candid  Examination  of  Theism,  by  Physicus,  p.  51. 


528 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


with  God  in  the  life  of  faith  and  love,  and  to  reconciliation,  com¬ 
munion  and  peace  with  God.  He  reveals  to  man  his  true  well¬ 
being  and  highest  destiny  as  renewed  in  a  spiritual  birth  and  life 
and  as  capable  of  spiritual  growth  and  achievement  on  earth  and 
in  the  life  immortal.  He  reveals  the  kingdom  of  God  on  earth 
and  in  heaven  as  the  realization  of  the  perfect  unity  and  commu¬ 
nity  of  men  and  of  the  highest  possibilities  of  humanity. 

And  in  this  he  reveals  the  true  worth  and  dignity  of  man,  the 
sacreduess  of  both  his  obligations  and  his  rights,  the  brotherhood 
of  men  as  the  children  of  God  and  redeemed  through  Christ,  the 
common  Saviour,  and  all  those  great  ideas  which  have  guided  and 
inspired  the  true  political  and  social  progress  of  man  in  modern 
times.  Christianity,  and  it  alone,  takes  up  the  whole  man,  spirit¬ 
ual  and  natural,  and  the  whole  sphere  of  his  action,  individual 
and  social,  all  his  interests  and  possibilities,  science  and  industrial 
invention,  literature  and  aesthetic  art,  work  and  play,  politics  and 
business,  morality  and  economics  ;  it  takes  them  up  with  spiritual 
light  and  love  and  life  and  power  adequate  to  quicken,  inspire 
and  guide  the  progress  of  the  individual  and  of  society  toward 
the  realization  of  the  ideal  perfection  of  humanity. 

Thus  the  historical  action  of  God  in  Christ  is  the  basis  of  the 
only  true  and  complete  philosophy  of  human  history.  Man  and 
his  history  and  destiny  can  never  be  understood  without  recogniz¬ 
ing  his  relation  to  God,  the  fact  of  sin  and  God’s  gracious  action 
in  redemption,  and  the  existence  and  growth  of  God’s  kingdom 
on  earth.  Christ  is  central  in  human  history.  On  him  all  the 
lines  of  divine  action  and  influence  before  his  coming  converge ; 
and  from  him  all  divine  action  and  influence  in  redemption  go 
forth  into  the  subsequent  life  and  history  of  man.  Thus  God’s 
action  in  redemption  is  found  to  be  the  deepest  power  in  human 
history.  The  history  of  man  in  its  true  and  most  profound  sig¬ 
nificance  is  the  history  of  redemption.  Christianity  lives  in  the 
history  of  man,  its  roots  struck  down  into  the  depths  of  the  past, 
and  in  prophecy  and  promise  its  branches  lifting  its  verdure  and 
blossoms  and  fruit  to  all  the  heights  of  the  future  —  the  veritable 
tree  Ygdrasil  around  which  the  moral  world  is  built  and  on  which 
its  stability  depends. 

And  because  the  religion  of  Christ  is  comprehensive  of  all  spir¬ 
itual  light  and  life  and  power,  and  is  to  satisfy  the  spiritual  needs 
of  man  in  all  ages,  it  is  tested  by  the  progress  of  thought  and  civ¬ 
ilization  through  all  time.  In  presenting  himself  as  the  king  of 
God’s  kingdom  on  earth  and  the  Mediator  through  whom  God 


UNITY  AND  CONTINUITY  OF  THE  REVELATION.  529 


comes  to  save  men  from  sin,  Christ  challenges  this  test.  A  god 
of  the  Scandinavian  mythology  was  once  tested  in  various  ways 
to  prove  his  power.  Among  other  trials  he  was  challenged  to  a 
race  and  was  outrun.  He  afterwards  learned  that  his  competitor 
in  the  race  had  been  Human  Thought.  In  all  which  pertains  to 
man’s  moral  and  spiritual  life  Christ  has  been  tested  in  the  race 
with  human  thought  for  1800  years  and  has  been  always  in  ad¬ 
vance.  In  fact  it  is  much  more  than  this.  He  has  kept  the  lead 
while,  by  his  spiritual  quickening  of  men,  it  is  he  himself  who 
has  given  to  human  thought  its  power  and  speed. 

5.  Christianity  is  the  one  absolute  and  universal  religion  for 
all  men  in  all  ages. 

This  is  essential  in  the  idea  of  redemption  through  God  in 
Christ  reconciling  the  world  unto  himself.  It  is  God’s  historical 
action  redeeming  men  from  sin.  It  is  the  culmination  of  all  pre¬ 
ceding  revelations.  Christ  is  the  king  of  God’s  kingdom  on  the 
earth.  He  is  the  propitiation  for  the  sins  of  the  whole  world ; 
he  tasted  death  for  every  man ;  from  him  the  Spirit  of  God  is 
poured  on  all  flesh,  and  whosoever  will  may  take  the  water  of  life 
freely ;  in  him  God  is  our  Saviour,  “  who  willeth  that  all  men 
should  be  saved  and  come  to  the  knowledge  of  the  truth.”  1  The 
aim  of  Christianity  is  as  broad  as  humanity  and  as  far-reaching 
as  the  continued  history  of  mankind  in  this  world  and  the  next. 
Its  aim  in  respect  to  the  individual  is  his  spiritual  renovation  and 
perfection,  begun  on  earth  and  completed  in  his  glorification  in 
heaven ;  and  in  respect  to  society,  it  is  to  transform  it  into  the 
kingdom  of  God  existing  on  earth  and  in  all  generations  issuing, 
like  a  river  into  the  sea,  into  the  kingdom  of  the  blessed  in 
heaven ;  and  after  the  succession  of  human  generations  on  earth 
shall  have  ended,  going  on  forever  in  the  heavenly  glory  in  ways 
dimly  known  to  us.  In  this  kingdom  all  possible  human  perfec¬ 
tion  and  good  are  to  be  realized.  From  its  beginning  on  earth 
through  its  everlasting  duration  “  all  that  life  is  love.” 

Hence  the  outlook  of  Christianity  is  to  an  ever-progressive 
education  and  development  of  man,  through  his  faith  and  God’s 
gracious  dwelling  in  him  through  the  Holy  Spirit,  to  the  realiza¬ 
tion  in  him  of  all  that  is  true,  right,  perfect  and  good,  in  a  life  in 
which  all  his  energies  are  exerted  to  the  utmost  in  the  service  of 
man,  loving  his  neighbor  as  himself.  Christianity  is  the  religion 
of  promise,  the  future  ever  to  be  better  than  the  past.  It  is  thus 
the  religion  for  all  ages,  brightening  and  expanding  as  the  ages 

1  I.  Tim.  chap.  ii.  4. 


34 


530 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD„ 


roll  on.  And  as  it  is  the  religion  for  all  ages,  so  it  is  also  the  one 
only  religion  for  all  nations,  under  the  prevalence  of  which  all 
men  may  dwell  together  in  love  as  the  children  of  their  common 
Father  in  heaven,  redeemed  by  the  same  Saviour,  and  animated 
bv  the  same  trust  in  God  and  love  to  God  and  man. 

Christianity  is  fitted  to  be  the  universal  religion,  also,  by  its 
power  of  adaptation  to  new  conditions  without  change  of  its  prin¬ 
ciples,  its  life,  character  or  power.  We  have  seen  that,  both  in 
the  physical  system  and  the  spiritual,  the  principles  and  laws  of 
reason  are  unchangeable  and  eternal,  but  the  arrangements  and 
uniform  sequences  which  manifest  or  express  them  are  variable 
and  transient.  So  it  is  in  the  Christian  religion. 

This  results  from  the  fact  that  the  Christian  revelation  was 
primarily  a  revelation  of  God  through  his  historical  action  in 
redemption,  and  not  primarily  of  doctrine  in  formulas  addressed 
to  the  intellect.  Men  in  all  ages  study  the  great  facts  of  God’s 
action  and  his  communications  to  men  in  reconciling  the  world 
to  himself,  to  learn  from  them  the  Way,  the  Truth  and  the  Life. 
So  they  study  the  ongoings  of  the  physical  system  to  learn  the 
science  and  laws  of  nature.  Thus  Christ  is  the  same  yesterday, 
to-day  and  forever.  His  historic  life,  death,  resurrection  and  as¬ 
cension  remain  unchanged.  The  Way,  the  Truth  and  the  Life 
are  the  same  to  all  generations.  But  the  significance  of  Christ 
to  humanity  is  apprehended  progressively ;  new  applications  of 
Christianity  to  new  conditions  and  civilizations  may  be  discov¬ 
ered,  past  errors  may  be  corrected,  and  practical  applications  of 
it  suited  to  former  conditions  may  become  effete  and  pass  away. 
It  is  remarkable  that  in  the  Christian  Scriptures  there  is  very 
little  of  formulated  doctrine,  very  little  of  argument  in  defense  of 
doctrine,  scarcely  any  systemization  of  either  doctrine  or  ethics. 
There  are  in  the  New  Testament  no  prescribed  liturgy  or  forms 
of  worship ;  but  two  sacraments,  and  those  of  the  simplest  form ; 
no  prescribed  form  of  church  organization  and  administration  ; 
very  little  as  to  church  officers.  It  is  at  the  farthest  remove  from 
being  a  system  of  thought,  organization,  worship  and  life  com¬ 
pleted  and  worked  out  in  details,  a  closed  circuit  of  doctrine,  pre¬ 
cept  and  ecclesiastical  rubrics  to  which  nothing  can  be  added  and 
from  which  nothing  can  be  taken  away.  Therefore  in  Christian¬ 
ity  is  place  for  building  on  unchanging  truth  in  Christ,  who  is 
the  Logos  that  lighteth  every  man,  an  ever  grander  structure  of 
religious  knowledge  and  life,  and  adapting  it  to  the  varying  de¬ 
velopment  and  conditions  of  man,  from  the  child  to  the  pliiloso* 


UNITY  AND  CONTINUITY  OF  THE  REVELATION.  531 


pher,  from  the  savage  to  the  most  learned  of  civilized  men.  This 
is  the  truth  which  Rothe  meant  to  express  when  he  said,  “  Chris¬ 
tianity  is  the  most  mutable  of  all  things.  That  is  its  special 
glory.”  And  the  same  characteristic  of  the  Bible  is  the  ground 
of  Dean  Stanley’s  recognition  of  “the  endless  vigor  and  vitality 
of  the  words  of  Scripture ;  ”  and  of  the  conviction  expressed  in 
his  Inaugural  Lecture  at  Oxford,  in  1858,  that  “  in  that  virgin 
mine,  the  insufficiently  explored  original  records  of  Christianity, 
there  are  still  materials  for  a  new  epoch  ;  that  another  and  a  dif¬ 
ferent  estimate  of  the  points  on  which  Scripture  lays  the  most 
stress  warrants  the  hope  that  the  existing  materials,  principles, 
doctrines  of  the  Christian  religion  are  far  greater  than  have  ever 
yet  been  employed,  and  that  the  Christian  church,  if  it  ever  be 
permitted  or  enabled  to  use  them,  has  a  long  lease  of  new  life  and 
new  hope  before  it.” 

The  evils  resulting,  if  Christ  and  the  apostles  had  presented 
us  a  completed  and  closed  circuit  of  doctrinal  formulas,  practical 
rules  and  ecclesiastical  rubrics,  have  been  glaringly  manifest  in 
the  Papal  church  with  its  doctrine  of  infallibility.  Catholic 
divines  at  this  day  are  seriously  discussing  whether  the  proceed¬ 
ings  of  the  papacy  against  Galileo  forbid  good  Catholics  now  to 
teach  the  Copernican  astronomy.  St.  George  Mivart  tells  us 
that  a  much  esteemed  priest,  who  often  teaches  from  a  London 
pulpit,  lately  avowed  his  belief  that  the  sun  and  the  whole  side¬ 
real  heavens  do  actually  revolve  round  the  earth  every  twenty- 
four  hours ;  adding  that  it  was  his  belief  because  he  considered 
that  the  church  was  committed  to  that  belief  by  its  decision  re¬ 
specting  Galileo.  On  the  other  hand  Mivart  says  he  has  often 
heard  it  said :  “  How  providential  was  that  divine  influence 
which  guarded  the  Pope  from  addressing  to  the  universal  church 
any  decree  formally  excommunicating  all  adherents  of  Coperni- 
eanism  thenceforth  for  all  time.”  1  And  another  very  excellent 
priest  exclaimed  to  him  :  “  How  glorious  it  would  be  if  it  should 
turn  out  after  all  that  the  sun  did  move  round  the  earth,  and 
that  therefore  the  church  had  been  all  this  time  in  the  right 
about  the  matter.” 

It  is  the  essence  of  Christianity  that  it  is  the  glad  tidings  of 
God  in  Christ  reconciling  the  world  unto  himself ;  that  the 
power  of  God  in  Christ  is  ever  in  it  through  the  divine  Spirit ; 
that  it  is  the  living  and  ever  present  power  of  God  unto  salva¬ 
tion  ;  that  therefore  its  principles  are  not  lifeless  crystals,  formed 
1  Nineteenth  Century,  July,  1885,  pp.  35,  36,  38. 


532 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


with  mathematical  exactness,  but  germs  of  life  ;  that  its  divine 
light  and  life  and  power,  forever  unchanged,  adapt  themselves  to 
men  in  all  conditions,  are  in  advance  of  all  moral  and  spiritual 
progress,  and  take  up,  vitalize  and  apply  all  truth  respecting 
God  and  his  relations  to  men  which  the  religions  and  religious 
philosophies  of  men  have  brought  to  light.  And  as  thus  compe¬ 
tent  to  be  the  universal  religion,  the  course  of  the  ages  has  been 
the  continuous  verification  of  Christianity.  As  to  the  individual 
Christianity  is  its  own  attestation  in  the  life  of  every  one  who 
trusts  and  serves  Christ,  so  to  the  human  race  Christianity  is  its 
own  attestation  through  the  ages  in  the  progress  of  the  kingdom 
of  God.  And  we  are  justified  in  expecting  that  it  will  continue 
thus  to  verify  itself  in  all  the  progress  of  man  in  the  future  until 
the  kingdom  of  Christ  is  established  over  all  the  earth  ;  and  in 
the  realization  of  practical  Christianity  in  all  human  life  and 
institutions  the  demonstration  of  its  divine  character  and  origin 
will  be  complete.  Renan  says  at  the  close  of  The  Life  of  Jesus : 
“  This  sublime  man,  who  still  presides  each  day  over  the  history 
of  the  world,  it  is  allowed  to  call  divine,  not  in  the  sense  that 
Jesus  has  absorbed  all  divinity,  but  that  he  has  caused  his  race  to 
make  the  greatest  advance  toward  the  divine.  From  the  common 
level  of  mankind  there  rise  pillars  toward  heaven,  which  attest 
a  nobler  destiny.  Jesus  is  the  highest  of  these  pillars.  In  him 
is  centred  all  that  is  good  and  exalted  in  our  nature.  Whatever 
may  be  the  unlooked  for  phenomena  of  the  future,  Jesus  will 
never  be  surpassed.  His  worship  will  grow  young  forever.  All 
ages  will  say  that  among  the  sons  of  men  none  has  ever  been 
greater  than  Jesus.” 

III.  Unity  of  law  in  the  spiritual  and  the  phys¬ 
ical  systems.  —  Does  the  continuity  of  God’s  action  in  the  uni¬ 
verse  imply  that  the  laws  of  the  spiritual  system  and  of  the 
physical  are  the  same  ? 

1.  In  seeking  an  answer  to  this  question  we  must  have  regard 
to  the  following  principles. 

The  factual  arrangements  and  order  of  nature  and  the  uniform 
sequences  commonly  called  its  laws  are  in  their  essence  variable 
and  transient,  and  cannot  be  universal  laws  extending  over  the 
spiritual  system.  It  is  only  the  principles  and  laws  of  reason 
which  are  every  where  and  always  the  same. 

Of  these  unchanging  principles  and  laws  some  are  in  the 
nature  of  things  applicable  only  to  the  physical  system,  others 
only  to  the  spiritual  or  personal  system.  The  mechanical  law  of 


UNITY  AND  CONTINUITY  OF  THE  REVELATION.  533 


the  accelerated  motion  of  falling  bodies  is  a  mathematical  law 
universally  true  of  bodies  falling  to  the  earth.  But  it  has  no 
application  to  mental  phenomena  and  is  not  a  principle  of  the 
moral  law.  The  law  of  gravitation  is  not  a  law  to  the  free 
choices  of  the  human  will.  Thought  and  volition  cannot  be 
weighed.  Mr.  Spencer’s  attempt  to  develop  the  moral  law  from 
the  physical  principle  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest  is  an  example 
of  this  misapplication  of  natural  law  to  the  moral  system.  On 
the  other  hand  the  law  of  love  is  not  a  law  to  stones  and  trees 
and  snakes,  nor  to  the  physical  energies  of  impersonal  being. 
The  identity  of  all  their  laws  is  not  essential  to  the  unity  and 
continuity  of  the  two  systems  in  the  universe. 

As  personal  and  impersonal  beings  are  both  finite,  some  prin¬ 
ciples  of  reason  pertaining  to  the  existence  and  interaction  of 
finite  beings  must  be  laws  to  both  systems.  These  we  may 
legitimately  attempt  to  trace. 

Another  guiding  principle  is  that  in  the  order  of  dependence 
the  spiritual  precedes  the  physical ;  “  in  the  beginning  God.” 
It  is  the  rational  and  spiritual  that  is  revealed  through  the  phys¬ 
ical,  not  the  physical  which  is  revealed  through  the  spiritual. 
The  factual  sequences  called  laws  of  nature  are  not  carried  over 
upon  the  spiritual  system,  like  an  inundation  of  mud,  smothering 
all  spiritual  life.  And  the  unchanging  rational  principles  and 
laws  which  regulate  the  physical  system  do  not  originate  in  it 
and  thence  pass  over  upon  the  rational  and  spiritual ;  but  they 
originate  in  the  latter  and  thence  pass  over  and  regulate  the 
physical. 

The  physical  system  is  an  expression  or  manifestation  of  the 
thought  not  less  than  of  the  power  of  the  absolute  Reason.  This 
may  be  said  to  be  the  noumenon  of  which  the  physical  universe 
is  the  phenomenon.  It  is  the  reality  which  appears.  Therefore 
the  physical  universe  is  in  its  essence  intelligible  in  all  its  parts. 
It  is  an  expression  of  the  archetypal  thought  of  the  absolute 
Reason  —  an  expression  which,  on  account  of  the  limitation  of 
the  finite,  is  always  progressive  and  always  incomplete.  The 
subordination  of  the  physical  appears  in  the  fact  that  the  phys¬ 
ical  is  symbolic  of  the  rational.  Mr.  Spencer  and  Mr.  Fiske, 
when  at  the  end  of  their  analysis  they  reach  matter  or  force,  call 
it  a  symbol.  Their  whole  analysis  is  an  analysis  of  symbols. 
Matter  and  force  are  symbols  of  something  which  is  not  matter 
nor  force.  The  homogeneous  itself  is  a  symbol  of  a  mysterious 
Power  behind  it.  This  Power  cannot  be  the  Unknowable  because 


534 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


it  is  manifested  or  revealed  in  the  universe.  What  they  really 
find  in  nature  is  power  revealing  thought.  It  is  the  thought 
of  the  universal  Reason.  This  is  the  only  true  sense  in  which 
physical  things  and  forces  are  symbols.  The  subordination  of 
the  physical  to  the  spiritual  system  appears  also  in  the  fact  that 
the  spiritual  is  the  prius  of  the  physical,  from  which  it  proceeds 
and  for  which  it  exists.  Even  man,  though  implicated  in  nature, 
is  a  lord  of  nature.  While  the  ethnic  religions  regarded  even  the 
gods  as  submerged  in  nature  or  identified  with  its  powers,  in  the 
opening  of  Genesis  God  is  the  creator,  man  has  knowledge  of 
him,  is  under  his  law  and  appointed  to  have  dominion  over  na¬ 
ture  and  to  use  it.  And  this  lordship  over  nature  is  realized  in 
Christ  and  by  all  men  who  are  united  with  God  by  faith  in  him. 

2.  An  example  of  a  law  of  reason  which  extends  over  all  finite 
beings,  whether  in  the  physical  system  or  the  spiritual,  is  the  law 
that  every  beginning  or  change  has  a  cause. 

This  law  implies  that  the  greater  force  must  always  prevail 
over  the  less  when  they  act  against  each  other.  The  simplest 
application  of  this  law  is  to  the  impact  of  bodies  in  motion. 
The  one  which  has  the  greater  momentum,  as  the  product  of  its 
mass  and  velocity,  must  prevail  over  one  that  has  less.  The 
application  of  this  becomes  less  easy  as  the  arrangements  of 
nature  become  more  complicated,  and  especially  in  organic  and 
conscious  life.  But  in  all  complications  the  law  of  causation  re¬ 
mains  true,  and  the  greater  power,  or  the  power  working  at 
greater  advantage,  must  always  prevail  over  the  less  when  they 
come  into  opposition.  In  the  sphere  of  organic  life  this  is  the 
law  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest. 

This  law  implies  also  that  a  power  which,  developing  its  re¬ 
sources  to  the  utmost,  remains  inferior,  cannot  unaided  lift  itself 
to  equality  with  the  superior.  It  must  be  elevated,  if  at  all,  by  a 
superior  power.  This  is  simply  the  law  that  every  change  must 
have  an  adequate  cause  ;  that  that  which  is  not,  cannot  make 
itself  into  that  which  is ;  that  no  being  can  lift  itself  above  itself. 

Let  us  now  look  at  this  law  in  its  relation  to  the  personal  or 
moral  system. 

The  law  prevails  in  the  moral  system.  It  is  as  true  of  spirit¬ 
ual  energy  as  it  is  of  physical.  The  man  who  has  the  higher 
constitutional  endowment  and  is  the  better  disciplined,  trained 
and  educated  for  any  line  of  action,  other  things  being  equal,  must 
prevail  in  competition  with  one  who  is  inferior.  It  is  strength 
not  weakness  that  achieves  in  the  spiritual  system  not  less  than 


UNITY  AND  CONTINUITY  OF  THE  REVELATION.  535 


in  the  physical.  There  must  be  power  to  command  confidence. 
It  is  not  weakness  but  living  energy  that  achieves  the  realization 
of  truth  in  the  life  of  man. 

This  is  not  changed  into  moral  law  by  the  fact  that  it  is  a  law 
in  the  moral  or  spiritual  system.  It  remains  simply  a  law  de¬ 
claring  what  the  factual  action  of  power  must  be ;  the  cause 
must  be  adequate  to  the  effect;  the  stronger  must  prevail  over 
the  weaker,  when  they  encounter. 

In  the  moral  or  spiritual  system,  therefore,  there  are  two 
planes  of  law ;  law  in  both  is  law  in  its  deepest  significance  as 
unchanging  principles  of  reason  in  distinction  from  mere  uniform 
factual  sequence.  Law  in  the  lower  plane  is  a  principle  of  rea¬ 
son  declaring  what  must  be  the  action  of  power.  Law  in  the 
higher  plane  is  a  law  of  reason  declaring  what  ought  to  be  the 
action  of  a  free  moral  agent  directing  and  exerting  his  energy  in 
the  light  of  reason.  The  law  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest  is  law 
in  the  lower  plane.  The  law  of  love  to  God  and  man  is  the  law 
in  the  higher  plane. 

These  two  laws,  being  in  different  planes,  cannot  be  in  con¬ 
tradiction,  as  two  straight  lines  in  parallel  planes  cannot  meet. 
There  is  certainly  nothing  immoral  in  the  doctrine  that  a  cause 
must  be  adequate  to  its  effect,  or  that  ten  pounds  cannot  balance 
twenty,  or  that  when  two  forces  encounter,  the  stronger  must 
prevail.  The  law  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest  declares  merely 
what  must  result  when  a  stronger  force  encounters  a  weaker.  It 
is  no  more  in  conflict  with  the  moral  law  than  is  the  multipli¬ 
cation  table.  Contradiction  arises  only  when  law  in  the  lower 
plane  is  taken  for  the  universal  and  supreme  law  and  it  is  at¬ 
tempted  to  evolve  the  moral  law  from  it. 

This  law  in  the  lower  plane  is  also  a  fact  important  to  be 
taken  into  consideration  in  determining  in  any  particular  case 
what  duty  is.  When  a  person  sees  that  the  strong  must  prevail 
in  collision  or  competition  with  the  weak,  he  finds  himself  in  a 
universe  in  which  power  always  tells.  He  sees  therefore  that 
since  he  is  capable  of  disciplining,  training  and  developing  him¬ 
self,  he  ought  to  make  the  most  of  his  opportunities  and  powers  ; 
to  acquire  force  of  character,  skill,  strength  and  self-command. 
It  is  the  law  of  energetic  self-development  overriding  and  subdu¬ 
ing  the  desire  for  a  life  of  ease  and  luxurious  self-indulgence. 
He  sees  also  that  if  there  is  no  law  but  the  might  of  the  strongest, 
the  weaker  must  go  under  in  the  fierce  competition  of  selfish  life. 
Under  the  law  of  love  he  sees  that  he  and  every  man  ought  to 


536 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


use  his  strength  to  help  the  weak.  The  higher  ought  to  go  down 
to  the  lower  to  lift  it  up.  And  because  the  law  of  the  survival 
of  the  fittest  is  inexorable  and  unchangeable,  he  sees  that  the 
only  effectual  way  to  help  the  weak  is  to  help  them  to  learn  how 
to  help  themselves,  to  develop  themselves  and  make  the  most  of 
their  powers.  And  when  all  men  obey  the  law  of  love  and  guide 
their  loving  action  with  due  regard  to  the  fixed  physical  laws  in 
the  lower  plane,  then  the  wretchedness  and  debasement  attendant 
on  the  inequalities  of  human  life  will  pass  away. 

Thus  the  physical  law  itself,  destructive  to  the  weak  under  the 
action  of  selfishness,  is  helpful  in  effecting  the  best  moral  results 
under  the  action  of  universal  love. 

A  person  seeing  himself  in  relation  to  his  fellow-men  and  to 
God  in  the  unity  of  a  system,  knows  himself  under  obligation  to 
use  his  strength  and  skill,  not  in  the  service  of  himself  alone,  but 
of  all  in  their  relations  to  himself  and  one  another  in  the  system. 
If  he  has  superior  power  he  is  under  obligation  to  use  it,  not  to 
compel  the  unrequited  service  of  inferiors,  but  co  serve  them,  to 
help  them  to  rise.  He  is  not  to  live  to  be  ministered  unto,  but 
to  minister.  The  law  is,  Greatness  for  service. 

In  this  service  of  love,  the  Christian,  seemingly  in  spite  of 
himself,  is  in  the  way  of  most  effectually  developing  himself  to 
realize  the  highest  possibilities  of  his  own  being. 

In  this  also  he  is  securing  his  greatest  influence  among  men. 
In  every  sphere  of  human  action,  especially  in  great  emergen¬ 
cies,  history  has  always  shown  the  need  of  men  of  strength  and 
wisdom  to  be  leaders  and  commanders  of  the  people.  In  a  ship¬ 
wreck  or  a  railroad  accident,  he  who  retains  his  self-possession 
and  knows  what  ought  to  be  done,  takes  command  of  the  fright¬ 
ened  company  and  they  do  what  he  bids.  So  in  the  greater 
emergencies  of  history,  when  the  man  of  power  equal  to  the 
emergency  appears,  the  leadership  is  his.  The  same  holds  true 
in  the  kingdom  of  Christ.  Whoever  by  entire  consecration  and 
effective  service  makes  himself  indispensable,  is  a  bishop,  a  Chris¬ 
tian  king  of  men  by  divine  right. 

Thus  both  in  his  own  self-development  and  in  acquiring  influ¬ 
ence  over  others,  the  law  of  greatness  for  service  reveals  itself  to 
be  also  the  law  of  greatness  by  service.  And  by  the  same  law 
the  selfish  misuse  of  knowledge  and  power  is  precluded. 

Here  the  law  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest  reappears,  regener¬ 
ated  by  faith  in  the  God  in  Christ  and  by  the  love  of  God  and 
man.  Man  realizes  his  highest  greatness  and  power  in  the  life 


UNITY  AND  CONTINUITY  OF  THE  REVELATION.  537 


of  service  in  love.  Love  is  the  mightiest  of  powers  and  prevails 
over  all.  It  is  still  the  strong  who  prevail  over  the  weak,  not 
by  crowding  them  out  of  existence,  but  by  purifying  them  from 
ignorance,  error  and  sin,  bringing  them  into  submission  to  the 
law  of  love  and  into  harmony  with  it,  and  thereby  developing 
them  also  and  making  them  strong  in  God. 

But  here  is  something  widely  different  from  the  law  of  the 
correlation  and  conservation  of  force  which  prevails  in  the  phys¬ 
ical  system.  The  giving  does  not  impoverish.  The  expenditure 
of  spiritual  energy  only  increases  it.  This  is  our  Lord’s  princi¬ 
ple  :  “  He  that  findeth  his  life  shall  lose  it ;  and  he  that  loseth 
his  life  for  my  sake  shall  find  it.” 

What  has  been  said  is  accordant  with  the  historical  progress 
of  man.  In  the  ruder  ages  men  honored  physical  strength,  which 
to  them  stood  for  all  greatness  and  commanded  honor,  trust  and 
allegiance.  As  society  advanced,  naked  strength  was  clothed  with 
intelligence,  and  intellectual  prowess  rose  to  the  highest  honor. 
By  the  invention  of  gunpowder  the  weakest  and  foolishest  at 
ten  feet  distance  is  on  a  level  with  the  strongest  and  wisest  and 
even  commands  him.  And  by  innumerable  inventions  men  are 
brought  to  a  level  in  their  power  of  production,  and  the  indi¬ 
vidual  superiority  of  physical  or  intellectual  power  is  lessened. 
But  the  power  which  grows  and  strengthens  in  the  life  of  love 
can  never  be  lessened.  The  world  at  large  has  yet  to  learn  the 
secret,  which  Christ  taught,  of  gaining  power  by  expending,  of 
finding  life  by  losing  it.  The  high  place  of  honor  which  in  the 
earlier  ages  was  given  to  muscular  strength  and  in  later  times 
to  intellectual  power,  must  in  the  better  future  be  given  to  the 
moral  power  of  love,  to  moral  and  spiritual  greatness.  Then  phys¬ 
ical  strength  and  intellectual  power,  under  the  presidency  of  love 
and  quickened  and  guided  by  it,  will  not  be  less  but  greater. 
Then  only  in  the  complete  harmony  of  his  being  man  will  attain 
also  the  highest  and  best  physical  and  intellectual  development. 
Man’s  true  progress  consists  in  developing  spiritual  power  to  con¬ 
trol  and  direct  physical  force.  The  progress  of  Christian  civil¬ 
ization  is  marked  by  increasing  reliance  on  the  power  of  truth, 
righteousness  and  good-will,  and  a  proportionally  lessening  reli¬ 
ance  on  force  and  violence. 

Mr.  Spencer  teaches  that  by  the  mere  physical  law  of  evolu¬ 
tion,  the  survival  of  the  fittest,  men  who  most  fully  lead  lives  of 
righteousness  and  good-will  must  have  the  greater  advantage  and 
power  and  must  survive  as  the  fittest ;  and  thus  in  the  future  a 


538 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


race  of  men  will  be  evolved  who  will  find  the  same  enjoyment  in 
serving  others  as  themselves  and  will  be  as  naturally  impelled  to 
it,  and  there  will  be  a  universal  reign  of  love.  We  welcome  his 
testimony  that  love  is  the  mightiest  of  powers ;  that  the  universe 
shows  to  scientific  observation  that  it  is  best  for  every  man  to 
live  as  if  the  law  of  love  was  supreme  ;  and  that  the  universe  is 
so  constituted  that  in  its  actual  evolution  it  has  produced  a  race 
of  rational  and  moral  beings  and  hereafter  must  culminate  in 
bringing  in  the  universal  reign  of  love.  This  accords  with  Chris¬ 
tian  ethics  and  theological  teleology.  His  error  is  in  attempting 
to  develop  altruism  from  egoism,  a  moral  law  and  system  from 
the  mere  mechanical  principle  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest,  that 
the  stronger  must  prevail  in  conflict  with  the  weaker.  This  is 
impossible,  because  the  only  moral  law  which  can  be  derived  from 
this  principle  is  the  law  that  might  makes  right ;  because  the 
physical  evolution  of  men  amiable  by  nature  cannot  give  the  idea 
of  obligation  and  law,  of  right  and  wrong,  but  only  of  natural 
impulse  and  enjoyment ;  and  because  experience  shows  that  the 
physical  law  without  the  moral  cannot  give  the  true  wellbeing 
of  man. 

The  Economics,  prevalent  since  Adam  Smith  wrote,  rests  on 
the  principle  that  unlimited  competition  springing  from  self- 
interest  is  sufficient  to  regulate  aright  all  industry  in  the  pro¬ 
duction  and  distribution  of  wealth.  It  is  in  fact  only  a  peculiar 
application  of  the  law  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest.  Accord¬ 
ingly  Mr.  Spencer  has  been  issuing  his  warning  against  legisla¬ 
tion  regulating  work  in  factories  or  elsewhere  and  protecting  the 
workers.  But  a  study  of  the  history  of  the  laissez-faire  theory 
presents  facts  in  abundance  to  prove  that  it  fails  to  protect  the 
weak,  to  secure  just  and  easy  relations  between  capital  and  labor, 
and  to  secure  the  more  equal  distribution  of  wealth ;  that  it 
weakens  respect  for  man  as  the  ultimate  end  of  industry  and  de¬ 
grades  him  into  a  mere  instrument  of  wealth,  as  if  the  man  were 
of  less  worth  than  the  product  of  his  work  and  might  be  sacri¬ 
ficed  to  increase  it ;  and  that  it  develops  the  all-consuming  greed 
for  wealth. 

Doubtless  the  law  of  love,  isolated  from  the  physical  law,  has 
led  to  mistaken  and  pernicious  charity.  Yet  it  has  at  least  pre¬ 
served  the  love,  more  precious  than  gold.  And  the  righteousness 
and  benevolence  exercised  in  accordance  with  that  law  are  indis¬ 
pensable  to  the  development  of  a  true  and  perfect  humanity  and 
of  a  strong  and  enduring  state.  In  many  ways  society  must  help 


UNITY  AND  CONTINUITY  OF  THE  REVELATION.  539 

the  weak  ;  and  the  best  wisdom  of  the  people  should  be  employed 
in  devising  the  safest  and  most  effective  means  of  doing  it.  The 
higher  must  go  down  to  the  lower  to  lift  it  up. 

We  have  seen  that  it  is  a  fixed  law,  both  in  the  physical  sys¬ 
tem  and  the  spiritual,  that  a  being  cannot  lift  itself  above  itself. 
In  accordance  with  this  law  of  all  finite  energy,  the  law  of  love 
in  the  moral  system  requires  the  stronger  to  help  the  weaker,  the 
higher  to  go  down  to  the  lower  to  raise  it  up. 

“  Unless  above  himself  he  can  erect  himself, 

How  poor  a  thing  is  man.” 

God  in  Christ  comes  to  him  with  quickening  spiritual  influences ; 
and  the  man  laying  hold  of  the  divine  grace  in  faith  receives  the 
quickening  energy  of  the  Spirit  of  God  and  by  it  lifts  himself 
into  a  new  and  higher  life. 

The  coming  of  God  in  Christ  reconciling  sinners  to  himself 
sets  forth  the  fundamental  law  of  the  universe ;  the  higher  is  to 
go  down  to  the  lower  to  help  and  strengthen  it  to  rise.  This  is 
the  law  of  love,  disclosed  in  Christ  who  came  not  to  be  ministered 
unto  but  to  minister,  and  to  give  his  life  a  ransom  for  many,  who 
requires  of  his  followers  greatness  for  service  and  assures  them 
of  greatness  by  service.  He  himself  descended  and  therefore 
ascended.1  And  as  this  is  the  law  of  love,  the  fundamental  law 
of  the  moral  system,  so  it  is  accordant  with  the  fundamental  law 
of  all  finite  energy,  the  law  of  causation,  that  no  being  can  lift 
itself  above  itself. 

In  this  law  we  see  the  continuity  of  God’s  action  in  the  uni¬ 
verse,  the  highest  ever  going  down  to  the  lowest  to  lift  it  up. 
God  is  continually  in  the  evolution  of  the  universe  preparing 
the  lower  to  be  the  medium  for  the  manifestation  of  something 
higher.  Thus  the  evolution  is  God’s  ever  greatening  revelation  of 
himself.  At  the  great  epochs  in  the  evolution  he  infuses  into  the 
finite,  so  soon  as  it  is  prepared  to  receive  and  manifest  it,  a  new 
and  higher  power,  beginning  a  new  and  higher  stage  of  exist¬ 
ence.  At  every  such  epoch  a  miracle-working  power  is  revealed, 
producing  what  transcends  all  which  had  previously  appeared. 
So  in  the  spiritual  sphere  God  comes  into  humanity  in  Christ, 
making  an  epoch  in  the  history  of  man,  putting  into  humanity  a 
new  spiritual  power  of  redemption  transcending  all  that  had  been 
in  it  before.  Thus  Christ,  as  the  New  Testament  represents  it, 
becomes  a  new  head  of  the  human  race,  the  head  of  a  spiritual 
race,  born  anew  of  the  Spirit  of  God.  This  epochal  action  of  God 

1  Eph.  cbap.  iv.  8,  9. 


540 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


in  Christ  is  in  accordance  with  the  continuity  of  God’s  action  in 
the  universe,  the  higher  going  down  to  the  lower  and  lifting  it 
up ;  and,  as  the  lower  becomes  fitted  to  receive  the  higher,  in  suc¬ 
cessive  epochs  revealing  a  higher  power  of  God  which  lifts  the 
universe  to  higher  planes  of  existence ;  first,  the  physical  through 
successive  epochs ;  then  the  great  epoch  in  which,  in  and  from 
the  physical,  the  spiritual  system  emerges ;  then  the  spiritual 
through  successive  epochs  of  education  and  redemption,  culmi¬ 
nating  in  Christ ;  and  looking  forward  prophetically  to  the  new 
heavens  and  the  new  earth  and  the  heavenly  glory  in  the  final 
coming  of  Christ.  And  the  epochs  in  the  evolution  of  the  phys¬ 
ical  system  are  as  really  miraculous  as  the  coming  of  Christ  and 
other  epochs  in  the  spiritual  system.  And  the  latter  are  the  con¬ 
tinuance  in  the  higher  spiritual  system  of  the  revelation  of  God 
beginning  in  the  physical  system.  And  instead  of  being,  as 
miraculous,  foreign  to  the  course  of  human  development,  the 
coming  of  God  in  Christ  and  the  redemption  of  men  by  him  are 
the  key  to  the  history  of  humanity,  revealing  its  source,  its  law, 
its  relation  to  God,  its  true  end  and  the  way  of  attaining  it. 
When  Christ  girded  himself  with  a  towel  and  washed  his  disci¬ 
ples’  feet,  that  menial  act  was  sublime  and  godlike.  It  was  the 
higher  stooping  to  the  lower,  the  divine  to  the  human  to  raise  it 
up.  It  set  forth  the  fundamental  law  of  the  universe. 

Thus  the  law  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest  is  a  principle  of 
reason,  which  is  law  both  in  the  spiritual  and  the  physical  sys¬ 
tems.  A  being  cannot  lift  itself  above  itself.  Accordingly  God 
revealing  himself  in  the  finite  is  always,  as  in  his  revelation  in 
Christ,  the  higher  going  down  to  the  lower  to  lift  it  up.  And 
this  is  what  the  law  of  love  requires.  This  higher  law  of  love, 
binding  on  moral  beings,  does  not  annul  or  contradict  the  law  of 
the  survival  of  the  fittest.  It  recognizes  it  as  a  fact  in  the  law 
of  greatness  for  service,  exemplified  in  Christ  “  taking  the  form 
of  a  servant.”  It  finds  it  also  as  a  fact,  in  the  law  of  greatness 
by  service,  set  forth  in  the  exaltation  of  Christ.  By  his  self- 
sacrificing  love  for  men  he  is  exalted  to  reign  in  the  hearts  and 
to  receive  the  loving  service  of  all  who  know  him.  Therefore 
his  is  the  name  which  is  above  every  name,  that  in  the  name  of 
Jesus  every  knee  should  bow.  Thus  while  the  law  of  the  sur¬ 
vival  of  the  fittest  is  law  both  in  the  physical  and  the  spiritual 
systems,  it  remains  merely  the  law  of  prevailing  might.  As  such 
it  cannot  contradict  the  law  of  love  ;  and  it  is  equally  true  that 
it  can  never  be  identified  with  the  law  of  love  nor  developed  into 


UNITY  AND  CONTINUITY  OF  THE  REVELATION.  541 


it.  On  the  contrary,  if  made  the  principle  of  moral  law,  it 
directly  contradicts  the  law  of  love.  The  Economics,  which 
excludes  the  law  of  love  from  human  industry  and  business  and 
constructs  its  theory  wholly  on  the  physical  law  of  the  survival 
of  the  fittest,  is  indeed  “the  dismal  science.”  And  so  is  every 
proposed  science  of  the  significance  and  destiny  of  humanity  and 
of  the  realization  of  the  highest  wellbeing  of  man,  without  the 
Christ. 

3.  A  second  example  of  a  law  common  to  all  finite  beings, 
personal  and  impersonal,  is  the  law  of  reception  and  production, 
or,  in  one  word,  the  law  of  dependence.  The  action  of  a  finite 
being  must  be  either  reception  or  production,  and  the  reception 
must  precede  the  production.  God  alone  can  produce  without 
previously  receiving. 

This  is  a  law  of  mechanics.  A  machine  can  do  its  work  only 
as  it  receives  power  from  without  itself.  It  is  a  law  of  organic 
life.  Every  living  organism  is  implanted  in  its  environment  and 
sustained  and  fed  from  it.  Every  plant  is  a  centre  on  which 
all  cosmic  powers  concentre  their  service  to  nourish  and  quicken 
its  growth  and  productiveness.  The  sun,  the  earth,  the  air,  the 
waters  minister  to  it.  Light,  heat,  electricity,  chemical  affinities, 
gravitation  work  on  it  diligently  every  hour  to  develop  it  and 
perfect  its  fruit.  It  is  a  law  of  the  human  body.  A  man  boasts 
of  his  strength,  but  a  brief  privation  of  food  destroys  it ;  and  he 
is  also  receiving  from  the  air,  the  sun,  the  earth,  from  electricity 
and  other  cosmic  agencies.  It  is  a  law  of  our  social  life.  Every 
one  receives  his  life  from  parents  ;  and  in  the  earlier  life  of  the 
child  it  is  still  enveloped  in  the  life  of  the  parents.  In  all  things 
we  depend  on  others.  Our  table  is  spread  with  what  other  hands, 
some  of  them  working  perhaps  on  other  continents,  have  produced, 
brought  to  our  doors  and  prepared  for  our  use.  The  division  of 
labor  implies  our  reception  from  others  and  our  faith  and  trust  in 
them.  All  our  secular  life  is  by  faith  as  really  as  our  religious 
life.  Faith  is  the  bond  of  society,  its  cohesive  attraction.  With¬ 
out  it  society  would  be  disintegrated  in  anarchy  and  man  would 
degenerate  into  something  worse  than  savagery. 

Christ  recognizes  the  same  law  in  the  moral  system.  Man  in 
his  spiritual  life  is  dependent  on  his  spiritual  environment,  as 
in  his  animal  life  on  his  physical  environment.  His  spiritual 
environment  is,  first  of  all,  God  “  in  whom  we  live  and  move  and 
have  our  being.” 

In  the  spiritual  system  the  law  of  dependence  is  the  law  that  a 


542 


THE  SELF-RE YELATION  OF  GOD. 


man  can  live  a  right  spiritual  life  only  by  faith  in  God ;  that  all 
right  works  must  be  done  in  faith.  Faith  in  God  is  the  receptive 
action  corresponding  to  man’s  weakness,  dependence  and  need. 
His  active  and  productive  energy,  his  works,  correspond  to  his 
freedom,  power  and  obligation.  But  he  is  productive  in  good 
works  only  as  he  is  continually  receptive  of  the  divine  influences. 

Christianity  assumes  that  union  with  God  by  faith  is  man’s 
normal  condition.  As  a  finite  creature  he  is  always  dependent 
on  God.  He  is  free  to  choose  the  ends  to  which  he  will  direct 
his  action  and  exert  his  energies  at  will ;  but  as  a  finite  creature 
his  freedom  does  not  lift  him  out  of  his  dependence  on  God.  He 
can  live  aright,  he  can  realize  the  highest  possibilities  of  his  being 
as  a  man,  only  as  he  willingly  trusts  in  God,  in  the  recognition 
of  his  dependence  on  him,  and  thus  comes  into  his  normal  con¬ 
dition  in  union  with  God.  God  acts  graciously  on  and  in  him 
with  spiritual  influence  ;  the  man  willingly  receives  the  divine  in¬ 
fluence  and  in  harmony  with  it  follows  the  divine  drawing,  work¬ 
ing  together  with  God.  Instead  of  this  being  incompatible  with 
man’s  freedom,  it  is  essential  to  the  exertion  of  his  highest  power 
for  good,  to  his  attaining  his  true  perfection  and  well-being  and 
abiding  in  his  normal  condition.  This  willing  trust  in  God  is 
faith.  All  right  living  on  the  part  of  man  must  be  by  faith  in 
God.  This  is  so  not  merely  because  he  is  a  sinner,  but  because  he 
is  a  creature  and  dependent  on  God.  Angels  in  heaven  must  live 
by  faith  as  really  as  men.  And  Christianity  not  only  assumes  that 
this  union  of  man  with  God  by  faith  is  man’s  normal  condition, 
but  in  its  peculiar  revelation  of  God  in  Christ,  the  Redeemer,  un¬ 
folds  the  rich  significance  of  the  fact  as  no  other  religion  does. 

Christ  illustrates  this  law  of  faith  by  the  union  of  a  branch 
with  the  vine.  It  must  abide  in  the  vine  and  continuously  re¬ 
ceive  nourishment  from  it  or  it  withers.  Man  in  his  normal 
condition  is  implanted  in  God  and  receives  continuously  his  life- 
giving  influence.  If  by  his  own  free  act  he  closes  the  avenues  of 
communication  from  God  and  attempts  to  live  in  self-sufficiency, 
his  spiritual  productiveness  ceases  and  his  spiritual  life  withers. 

And  this  reveals  the  essential  and  deepest  significance  of  sin.  It 
is  the  soul’s  separating  itself  by  its  own  free  action  from  God  and 
setting  up  for  itself  in  self-sufficiency,  shutting  out  the  heavenly 
influences  on  which  the  right  spiritual  life  and  its  productiveness 
depend.  In  sinning,  man  repudiates  his  condition  as  a  creature, 
absolves  himself  from  dependence  on  God  and  obligation  to  him, 
and  in  his  self-sufficiency  and  self-will,  his  self-seeking  and  self- 
glorifying,  undertakes  to  produce  without  receiving. 


UNITY  AND  CONTINUITY  OF  THE  REVELATION. 


543 


Here  we  see  tlie  fundamental  reality  recognized  in  the  law  of 
life  and  justification  by  faith.  A  created  being  can  live  and  de¬ 
velop  himself  aright  only  by  recognizing  his  dependence  on  God 
and  trusting  in  him.  Otherwise  he  acts  in  contradiction  to  the 
deepest  reality  of  his  being.  Much  more,  if  a  sinner  is  to  be  saved 
from  sin,  it  is  possible  only  by  his  returning  to  God  in  faith,  only 
as  putting  his  trust  in  God  he  renounces  his  self-sufficiency,  and 
in  the  consciousness  of  dependence  and  need  opens  his  heart  to 
receive  not  only  God’s  gracious  and  free  forgiveness  but  also  his 
heavenly  influences,  and  to  live  and  grow  and  become  fruitful 
and  productive  by  receiving  God’s  grace  and  love ;  for  in  a 
rational  free  moral  agent  the  reception  cannot  be  passive,  but  is 
possible  only  by  man’s  free  choice. 

Only  the  love,  which  trusts  God  and  receives  spiritual  quicken¬ 
ing  and  nourishment  from  him,  becomes  the  love  which  obeys 
and  serves,  strong  and  productive  in  all  works  of  righteousness 
and  good-will. 

The  choice  of  God  as  the  supreme  object  of  trust  is  inevitably 
the  choice  of  him  as  the  supreme  object  of  obedience  and  ser¬ 
vice.  Filial  trust  is  filial  love.  The  consciousness  of  dependence 
on  God  is  not,  as  Schleiermacher  would  have  it,  consciousness 
merely  of  dependence.  God  is  the  absolute  Reason,  perfect  in 
wisdom  and  love.  Man  also  is  reason  like  God.  His  trust  is  a 
free  and  rational  act,  trusting  God  as  he  reveals  himself  our 
righteous  lawgiver  and  judge,  our  father,  and  —  name  above 
every  name  —  our  Redeemer.  We  live  by  being  loved.  We 
strike  our  roots  into  the  hearts  of  our  loved  ones  and  suck  into 
our  lives  their  richest  affections.  So  in  trust  we  strike  our  roots 
into  the  heart  of  God  and  receive  into  our  lives  the  richness  of 
his  love.  But  trust  like  this  must  issue  in  filial  obedience  and 
willing  service.  The  act  of  trust  or  receptivity  is  faith  ;  the  acts 
of  obedience,  service,  productivity,  are  works ;  and  faith  working 
is  love.  We  commonly  think  of  Paul  as  feeling  himself  debtor 
to  all  men,  as  living  in  the  intensest  energy  of  self-forgetful  love. 
Yet  we  find  him  drawing  his  spiritual  strength  from  God’s  love  : 
u  The  life  which  I  now  live  in  the  flesh  I  live  in  faith,  the  faith 
which  is  in  the  Son  of  God,  who  loved  me  and  gave  himself  for 
me.” 

By  sin  man  has  sundered  the  bond  of  his  union  with  God,  and 
it  is  only  by  being  restored  to  this  union  that  he  can  be  saved 
from  sin  and  condemnation.  But  this  reunion  can  be  consum¬ 
mated  only  as  God  in  Christ  redeems  men  from  sin  and  in  the 


544 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


Spirit  brings  the  influences  of  his  grace  upon  men,  and  only  as 
men  lay  hold  on  God  in  filial  trust  and  willingly  receive  all  the  in¬ 
fluence  of  his  redeeming  grace.  Thenceforward  the  divine  Light, 
Life  and  Love  penetrate,  pervade  and  nourish  the  recipient  soul, 
as  the  sunshine,  air  and  rain  and  all  cosmic  forces  penetrate, 
pervade  and  nourish  the  growing  plant,  and  the  believer  attains 
“  unto  a  full-grown  man,  unto  the  measure  of  the  stature  of  the 
fulness  of  Christ.”  He  continues  always  to  receive  and  assimilate 
the  divine  communications  as  the  bread  and  the  water  of  life,  the 
pure  milk  of  the  word,  and  thus  is  nourished  and  strengthened 
for  service  and  productivity  in  all  Christlike  work  in  and  for  the 
kingdom  of  God. 

And  this  is  the  result  accomplished  by  Christ  in  redeeming 
men.  Overpowered  in  his  earthly  life  and  slain  by  the  men 
whom  he  came  to  save,  he  rose  again  from  the  grave  triumphing 
over  death,  man’s  last  enemy,  and  opening  to  his  redeemed  per¬ 
fection  and  blessedness  in  immortal  life.  In  the  completed  union 
of  the  divine  and  the  human  in  himself,  Christ,  the  glorified 
Head  of  redeemed  and  renovated  humanity,  reigns  at  the  right 
hand  of  the  Majesty  on  high,  and  from  him  proceed  unseen  the 
divine  Light  and  Life  and  Love,  in  the  Holy  Spirit,  to  all  man¬ 
kind  ;  the  kingdom  of  righteousness  and  peace  and  joy  in  the 
Holy  Spirit  comes  to  all  and  opens  itself  to  every  one  who  is 
willing  to  receive  the  grace  and  enter  his  service  and  kingdom. 
It  is  the  work  of  the  Spirit  to  bring  on  men  the  influences  and 
energies  of  Christ’s  redemption.  When  under  these  divine  in¬ 
fluences  a  sinful  soul  is  quickened  and  guided  to  Christ,  and  in 
filial  trust  receives  him  as  he  is  offered  in  the  gospel,  then  the 
separating  gulf  is  crossed  and  the  sinner  is  restored  to  his  normal 
condition  in  union  with  God  and  begins  the  new  and  spiritual 
life.  This  is  the  beginning  of  the  new  life  described  in  the 
Scriptures  as  being  born  anew  of  the  Spirit,  quickened  from 
death  to  life,  created  anew  in  Christ,  and  by  many  other  re¬ 
markable  representations  of  the  reality  of  the  new  beginning  and 
the  greatness  of  the  change.  Thenceforward  the  believer,  held 
firmly  in  union  with  God  by  God’s  grace  and  his  own  free  and 
willing  trust,  continues  in  spiritual  growth  toward  the  complete 
likeness  to  Christ,  the  perfect  man. 

We  see,  then,  that  the  doctrine  of  justification  by  faith  is  not 
an  arbitrary  requirement ;  but  faith  is  the  necessary  condition  of 
a  right  life  for  every  finite  person,  and  preeminently  necessary 
to  the  justification  of  a  sinner,  who  by  his  sin  is  separated  from 


UNITY  AND  CONTINUITY  OF  THE  KEVELATION.  545 

God  and  cannot  be  restored  to  union  with  him  any  otherwise 
than  by  trusting  God  in  Christ  and  willingly  receiving  his  grace 
as  it  is  offered  in  the  gospel  and  brought  to  men  in  the  Holy 
Spirit. 

Hence  the  common  objection,  that  a  man  must  be  justified  be¬ 
fore  God  by  right  character  and  not  by  faith,  and  that  the  doc¬ 
trine  of  justification  by  faith  implies  a  letting  down  of  the  au¬ 
thority  of  law  and  of  the  obligation  to  obedience,  is  groundless 
and  without  force.  There  is  no  antagonism  nor  even  antithesis 
between  justification  by  faith  and  justification  by  right  character. 
Justification  is  always  conditioned  on  right  character.  Chris¬ 
tianity  affirms  this :  “  Ye  must  be  born  again.”  “  Follow  after 
the  sanctification  without  which  no  man  shall  see  the  Lord.” 
Reason  affirms  the  same.  God  cannot  justify  one  who  persists  in 
sin.  Such  justification  would  be  immoral  in  itself  and  of  immoral 
tendency.  But  in  fact  justification  conditioned  on  faith  is  itself 
justification  on  condition  of  right  character.  Faith  is  the  only 
possible  beginning  of  right  character,  and  must  be  through  life 
the  continuous  and  vitalizing  support  of  all  right  character  and 
of  all  good  works.  In  trusting  God  in  Christ  the  communica¬ 
tion  with  God  is  reopened.  The  divine  and  spiritual  influences 
begin  to  pour  into  the  soul.  And  though  the  man  is  not  yet  de¬ 
livered  from  all  remaining  corruption  and  evil,  yet  the  new  life 
is  begun,  and  the  man  is  accepted  as  born  anew  by  his  reunion 
with  God  ;  and  by  continued  faith  the  new  life  will  pervade  his 
whole  being  and  restore  him  to  the  likeness  of  God  and  make 
him  productive  in  God’s  service.  So  a  scion  cut  from  a  tree,  as 
soon  as  it  reopens  communication  with  the  tree  by  being  grafted 
in  again,  begins  to  receive  of  the  life  of  the  tree  and  is  reinstated 
at  once  a  living  branch.  For  a  time  only  a  leaf  or  two  may 
appear,  and  part  of  it,  dried  and  dead,  may  be  dropped  off  with 
the  continued  pouring  in  of  the  life  of  the  tree.  But  the  connec¬ 
tion  with  the  life-giving  tree  is  restored,  and  after  a  while  we 
find  it  a  thrifty,  growing  branch,  rich  with  leaves  and  new 
branches  and  fruit. 

Thus  the  very  fact  of  justification  by  faith  is  itself  a  reaffirma¬ 
tion  of  the  authority  and  immutability  of  God’s  law.  It  reveals 
that  God  even  in  his  redeeming  grace  cannot  accept  and  justify 
a  sinner  who  is  persisting  in  sin  ;  that  the  great  gulf  of  separa¬ 
tion  between  God  and  the  sinner  must  be  crossed  by  the  sinner 
before  he  can  be  accepted,  and  he  can  cross  it  only  as  in  filial 
trust  he  lays  hold  of  God’s  gracious  hand  extended  for  his  rescue. 

35 


546 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


Thus  the  Christian  doctrine  of  justification  by  faith  is  necessarily 
the  doctrine  of  all  true  philosophy  and  of  all  true  theology,  the 
belief  and  hope  of  all  true  religion.  It  is  grounded  on  the  fact 
that  a  created  and  finite  being  cannot  live  aright  except  in  recog¬ 
nition  of  his  dependence  on  God  and  in  continuous  trust  in  him, 
and  that  a  sinner  cannot  begin  the  new  and  right  life  except  by 
trusting  in  God,  coming  to  him  in  his  redeeming  grace,  and  open¬ 
ing  his  heart  to  receive  his  illuminating,  quickening  and  renovat¬ 
ing  influence.  And,  conversely,  work  in  the  lowest  calling  done 
in  humble  trust  in  God  is  accepted  of  him  and  has  the  dignity  of 
true  Christian  service. 

Thus  the  law  that  faith  works  by  love  and  without  faith  no 
one  can  be  justified  before  God,  is  the  application  in  the  spiritual 
system  of  the  law  that  reception  must  precede  production,  which 
is  the  law  of  all  finite  energy. 

IV.  Objections.  —  Two  objections  remain  to  be  considered. 

1.  One  objection  now  often  urged  is,  that  it  is  impossible  for 
Christian  theism  to  bring  into  a  synthesis  with  itself  the  immense 
and  varied  scientific  knowledge,  and  the  intense  and  diversified 
activity  both  speculative  and  practical  which  characterize  our 
modern  life.  No  one  has  presented  this  objection  more  forcibly 
than  Mr.  Harrison.  “  Theology  has  had  periods  of  wonderful 
energy.  .  .  .  But  what  can  monotheism  do  now  to  vitalize  and 
discipline  the  intellect,  absorbed  as  it  is  in  its  deepest  struggle 
with  science,  fact,  history  and  common  sense  ?  .  .  .  On  its  own 
confession  it  is  quite  unable  to  systemize  the  logic  of  modern 
thought,  to  disentangle  the  accumulated  masses  of  modern 
knowledge.  .  .  .  Now,  since  science  has  surrounded  our  lives 
with  such  a  concurrent  mass  of  correlated  law,  and  this  sense  of 
law  is  so  wide-spread  and  familiar  to  the  daily  thought  of  the 
most  ignorant ;  now,  since  our  social  existence  is  so  developed 
and  has  so  clothed  with  noble  colors  the  free  resources  of  man's 
manifold  powers,  now  it  is  simply  impossible  to  find  the  crea¬ 
tor  in  every  thought,  God  in  every  act.  The  most  mystical  of 
theologians,  the  most  austere  of  devotees  does  not  ask  us  to  do 
so.  Common  sense  is  too  overwhelming  to  be  resisted.  The 
Pope  alone  holds  out  and  discharges  a  syllabus  now  and  then. 
But  bishops,  priests  and  deacons,  for  the  most  part,  sweep  the¬ 
ology  away  from  the  whole  field  of  systematic  thought  and  active 
life.  All  we  ask,  say  they,  as  sensible  theologians,  is  to  reserve 
the  idea  of  God  and  the  scheme  of  man's  salvation  for  the  hours 
'hat  are  given  to  meditation  and  prayer,  to  the  spiritual  sphere 


UNITY  AND  CONTINUITY  OF  THE  REVELATION.  547 


alone.  .  .  .  Where  is  the  man  who  can  honestly  say,  looking 
around  on  the  vast  accumulation  of  modern  knowledge,  that  he 
coordinates  all  his  thought  around  the  image  of  God  ;  that  the 
idea  of  God  gives  him  a  rational  theory  of  all  his  acquirements, 
that  he  thinks  for  the  service  of  God  and  can  see  that  service  ful¬ 
filled  in  every  thought  ?  Or  who  can  say  in  the  whirl  of  our 
modern  industrial  activity,  that  he  works  and  toils  for  God,  that 
God  is  the  natural  object  of  all  human  labor,  that  each  product 
of  his  hands  is  a  new  offering  to  his  creator’s  wellbeing,  that  it 
is  a  comfort  and  a  use  to  an  omnipresent  providence  ?  Who  can 
utter  any  one  of  these  phrases  in  a  literal  sense,  in  any  but  a 
sophistical  and  hysterical  way  ?  ”  1 

In  reply  to  this  objection,  it  is  only  necessary  to  expose  its  mis¬ 
apprehensions  of  what  Christian  Theism  is. 

As  to  the  closing  questions,  men  in  the  ruder  conditions  of  so¬ 
ciety  are  supposed  to  have  believed  that  their  sacrifices  were  food 
to  their  god  and  an  “  offering  to  his  wellbeing,”  and  their  service 
“  a  comfort  and  use  ”  to  him.  But  it  is  surprising  that  an  intel¬ 
ligent  man  should  attribute  to  Christianity  a  belief  utterly  foreign 
to  it  and  from  which,  as  history,  doctrine  and  life,  it  is  at  the  far¬ 
thest  possible  remove.  We  must  turn  on  Mr.  Harrison  his  own 
inquiry,  Who  could  utter  any  one  of  these  questions,  “  in  any  but 
a  sophistical  and  hysterical  way  ?  ” 

It  is  also  a  surprising  misapprehension  that  Christianity  in  its 
true  essence  is  in  contradiction  to  science  and  the  normal  develop¬ 
ment  of  life  in  modern  civilization  ;  that  all  theologians  except 
the  Pope  acknowledge  this  ineradicable  contradiction;  and  that 
all  “sensible  theologians”  conceive  of  religion  and  the  spiritual 
life  as  limited  to  the  hours  of  meditation  and  prayer,  and,  ac¬ 
knowledging  the  contradiction  between  religion  and  man’s  intel¬ 
lectual  and  practical  life  to  be  real  and  ineradicable,  hide  their 
eyes  from  it  by  declaring  the  absolute  separation  of  religion  from 
the  scientific  and  the  actual  life  of  men ;  thus  reviving  the  opin¬ 
ion  attributed  to  mediaeval  scholasticism,  that  what  is  true  in 
philosophy  may  be  false  in  theology.  It  is  not  denied  that  some 
theologians  have  made  unwise  concessions,  and  thus  have  unwit¬ 
tingly  abandoned  positions  important  to  the  defense  of  Christian¬ 
ity.  But  that  there  is  a  necessary  contradiction  between  true 
Christianity  and  science  and  the  real  progress  of  man,  and  that 
this  is  now  commonly  admitted  by  theologians,  is  a  surprising 
misapprehension  of  the  facts. 

1  Fred.  Harrison:  Creeds;  Nineteenth  Century,  Nov.  1880. 


648 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


And  as  to  the  alleged  withdrawal  of  religion  from  actual  life, 
the  contrary  is  true.  The  most  distinctive  characteristic  of  the 
Christianity  of  this  age  in  all  branches  of  the  church  is  its  hu- 
manitarianism,  its  application  of  Christianity  to  the  removal  of 
abuses,  the  reformation  of  men,  the  progressive  improvement  of 
society  in  all  spheres  of  human  action.  It  is  thus  coming  nearer 
to  the  original  ideal  in  Christ,  who,  earnest  and  frequent  in  wor¬ 
ship  and  prayer,  alone,  socially  and  in  public  assemblies,  yet 
lived  among  men  and  went  about  doing  good. 

As  to  the  “wide-spread  sense  of  law,”  it  certainly  is  not  true 
that  Christian  theologians  concede  that  there  is  any  contradiction 
between  Christianity  and  law.  The  ground  taken  by  Christian 
writers  in  defense  of  Christianity  is,  that  the  miraculous  element 
in  it,  instead  of  setting  aside  law,  is  itself  a  revelation  of  law  in 
a  more  profound  significance  than  the  factual  uniformity  of  se¬ 
quences,  which  in  empirical  science  are  often  supposed  to  exhaust 
the  whole  significance  of  the  word. 

If  to  “  find  the  creator  in  every  thought,  God  in  every  act,” 
means  that  in  every  thought  and  act  God  is  at  the  moment  in 
the  consciousness,  the  demand  is  puerile  and  unreasonable.  But 
so  much  as  this  at  least  is  true  that  we  may  by  thinking  “  find  ” 
God  in  every  thought  and  act ;  that  is,  when  we  are  seeking  to  ex¬ 
plain  either  the  course  of  nature  or  the  course  of  human  thought 
and  action,  at  whatever  point  in  either  of  them  we  begin  our  in¬ 
quiries,  we  are  necessarily  carried  back  to  God  for  its  ultimate 
rationale  and  ground.  All  science,  whether  empirical  or  philo¬ 
sophical,  rests  ultimately  on  the  truth  that  God,  the  absolute  and 
universal  Reason,  exists. 

Mr.  Harrison  holds  an  exceedingly  narrow  and  erroneous  view 
of  what  the  Christian  religion  is  ;  consequently  his  objection,  that 
it  cannot  take  up  into  harmony  with  itself  the  thought  and  life 
of  modern  civilization,  has  no  pertinence  against  Christianity 
rightly  understood.  His  error  in  its  general  tenor  is,  that  accord¬ 
ing  to  Christianity  the  religious  life  is  limited  to  meditation  and 
worship  ;  that  all  knowledge  of  the  universe  is  found  in  the  Bible, 
and  that  whatever  science  discovers,  which  is  not  taught  in  the 
Bible,  cannot  be  brought  within  the  pale  of  Christian  thought 
and  feeling,  and  thus  is  irreconcilable  with  Christianity;  that  the 
Christian’s  trust  in  God's  providential  and  gracious  care  assumes 
a  direct  interference  of  God  in  his  behalf,  which  is  at  once  favor¬ 
itism  to  him  as  an  individual  and  a  breach  of  the  uniformity  and 
continuity  of  the  ongoing  of  the  universe  ;  that  so  long  as  eclipses 


UNITY  AND  CONTINUITY  OF  THE  REVELATION.  549 

were  supposed  to  be  effected  by  the  direct  action  of  supernatural 
beings  they  properly  awakened  religious  emotion,  but  now  that 
their  scientific  law  is  known,  religion  has  no  more  concern  with 
them ;  and,  in  a  word,  that  as  one  phenomenon  after  another  is 
found  to  be  accordant  with  physical  laws,  it  passes  away  from  the 
sphere  of  religion.  Only  when  it  is  assumed,  as  it  is  by  Mr.  Harri¬ 
son,  that  science  will  account  for  all  phenomena  by  physical  force 
acting  according  to  physical  laws,  are  God  and  religion  excluded 
from  the  whole  range  of  human  thought,  feeling  and  action. 

This  narrow  conception  of  religion  is  strikingly  exemplified  by 
Mr.  Hamerton  :  44  If  I  had  to  condense  .  .  .  the  reasons  why  we 
are  apparently  becoming  less  religious,  I  should  say  that  it  is 
because  knowledge  and  feeling,  embodied  or  expressed  in  the 
sciences  and  the  arts,  are  now  too  fully  and  variously  developed 
to  remain  within  the  limits  of  what  is  considered  sacred  knowl¬ 
edge  or  religious  emotion.  It  was  possible  for  them  to  remain 
within  these  limits  in  ancient  times,  and  it  is  still  possible  for  a 
mind  of  very  limited  activity  and  range  to  dwell  almost  entirely 
in  what  was  known  or  felt  in  the  time  of  Christ ;  but  this  is  not 
possible  for  an  energetic  and  inquiring  mind ;  and  the  conse¬ 
quence  is  that  the  energetic  mind  will  seem  to  the  other  to  be 
negligent  of  holy  things  and  too  much  occupied  with  merely  sec¬ 
ular  interests  and  concerns.”  And  after  speaking  of  the  discov¬ 
ery  of  the  physical  cause  of  an  eclipse,  he  says  :  44  Exactly  the 
same  process  is  going  on  in  regard  to  thousands  of  other  phenom¬ 
ena  which  are  one  by  one,  yet  with  increasing  rapidity,  ceasing  to 
be  regarded  as  special  manifestations  of  the  divine  will,  and  begin¬ 
ning  to  be  regarded  as  part  of  that  order  of  nature  with  which, 
to  quote  Prof.  Huxley’s  significant  language,  4  nothing  interferes.’ 
Every  one  of  these  transferences  from  supernatural  government 
to  natural  order  deprives  the  religious  sentiment  of  one  special 
cause  or  motive  for  its  own  peculiar  kind  of  emotion,  so  that  we 
are  becoming  less  and  less  accustomed  to  such  emotion  (as  the 
opportunities  for  it  become  less  frequent),  and  more  and  more 
accustomed  to  accept  events  and  phenomena  of  all  kinds  as  in 
that  order  of  nature  4  with  which  nothing  interferes.’  The  philos¬ 
opher  says :  4  If  you  are  prudent  and  skilful  in  your  conform¬ 
ity  to  the  laws  of  life  you  will  probably  secure  that  amount  of 
mental  and  physical  satisfaction  which  is  attainable  by  a  per¬ 
son  of  your  organization.’  The  priest  holds  a  very  different  lan¬ 
guage  ;  the  use  of  the  one  word  love  gives  warmth  and  color  to 
his  discourse.  He  says  :  4  If  you  love  God  with  all  your  soul  and 


550 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


all  your  strength,  lie  will  love  and  cherish  you  in  return,  and  be 
your  own  true  and  tender  Father.’  ”*  Thus  science  and  religion 
are  assumed  to  be  in  their  essential  significance  contradictory  and 
reciprocally  exclusive ;  and  it  is  assumed  that  if  the  universe  is 
orderly  and  continuous  under  law,  all  love  and  wisdom  must  be 
excluded  from  the  power  that  controls  it  and  is  revealed  in  it. 

I  have  dwelt  at  some  length  on  these  misconceptions  because 
they  exemplify  the  fact  that,  when  our  new  Illuminati  write 
against  Christianity,  they  commonly  disclose  dense  ignorance  of 
what  it  is,  both  as  set  forth  in  Christ  and  the  New  Testament 
and  as  actually  held  in  the  common  Christian  belief.2 

These  misrepresentations  need  no  further  discussion ;  for  they 
have  been  sufficiently  exposed  in  the  presentation  and  defense  of 
Christian  theism  in  this  volume.  On  the  contrary,  Christianity 
is  in  harmony  with  all  science  and  its  practical  applications  in  the 
progress  of  civilization,  and  is  able  to  comprehend  it  all  in  a  unity 
of  thought  as  the  ever  progressive  revelation  of  God,  and  in  a 
unity  of  life  by  the  consecration  of  all  the  discoveries,  resources 
and  energies  of  civilization  to  the  service  of  God  in  the  advance¬ 
ment  of  Christ’s  kingdom  of  truth,  righteousness  and  good-will 
among  men. 

2.  The  greatness  of  redemption  is  urged  as  an  objection 
against  it. 

It  is  said  that  since  science  has  revealed  the  vastness  of  the  uni¬ 
verse,  it  is  unreasonable  to  suppose  that  God  would  have  done  so 
great  a  work  to  redeem  from  sin  men  on  this  earth,  when  the  earth 
itself  is  but  a  speck  in  the  immensity  of  space  and  amid  innumer¬ 
able  planets,  suns  and  systems.  This  is  now  one  of  the  common 
objections  of  unbelief.3  But  formidable  as  it  has  seemed,  it  takes 

1  Philip  Gilbert  Hamerton  ;  Human  Intercourse,  Essays,  xiii.  xiv.  xv.  pp. 
213,  217,  178. 

2  Mr.  Spencer  and  Mr.  J.  S.  Mill,  repeatedly  exemplify  this  in  their  criti¬ 
cisms  of  Christianity.  The  same  is  true  of  many  others  who  criticise  Chris¬ 
tianity  as  contradicting  modern  thought  and  hindering  the  normal  development 
of  life.  If  their  statements  of  fact  on  other  subjects  are  no  more  correct  than 
their  representations  of  Christianity,  they  are  blind  guides  in  every  sphere  of 
thought. 

3  Daniel  Webster  had  been  troubled  with  this  objection.  About  two  weeks 
before  his  death  he  dictated,  and  afterwards  revised  and  with  his  own  hand 
copied  and  signed,  the  following  declaration,  which  he  said  was  to  be  engraved 
on  his  tombstone:  “Lord,  I  believe;  help  thou  mine  unbelief.  Philosophical 
argument,  especially  that  from  the  vastness  of  the  universe  as  compared  with 
the  comparative  insignificance  of  this  globe,  has  sometimes  shaken  my  reason 
for  the  faith  that  is  in  me;  but  my  heart  has  assured  and  reassured  me  that 


UNITY  AND  CONTINUITY  OF  THE  REVELATION.  551 


but  little  thought  to  show  that  it  is  entirely  unreasonable  and 
void  of  force. 

The  first  answer  is  that  here  again  the  objection  derives  all  its 
force  from  the  false  assumption  that  the  physical  system  compre¬ 
hends  all.  When  a  man  contemplates  the  vastness  of  the  phys¬ 
ical  system  and  considers  himself  as  a  physical  organization  con¬ 
nected  only  with  the  material  system,  he  must  be  impressed  with 
his  own  littleness  and  insignificance.  But  when  he  considers  the 
system  of  rational  and  immortal  persons,  opening  through  suc¬ 
cessive  epochs  in  vistas  of  endless  progress,  and  when  he  consid¬ 
ers  himself  as  in  this  system,  one  of  the  immortals,  under  the  care 
of  God,  communing  with  him  and  the  object  of  his  redeeming 
love,  then  he  must  be  impressed  with  the  greatness  of  man.  And 
the  grander  the  system  is  and  the  more  glorious  its  destiny,  the 
grander  is  the  man.  Man  considered  as  belonging  to  the  physi¬ 
cal  system  only  is  belittled  by  its  greatness.  Man  considered  as 
belonging  to  the  rational  and  spiritual  system  is  greatened  and 
ennobled  by  its  greatness.  The  revelation  of  God  by  his  action 
in  the  spiritual  system  must  be  commensurate  with  the  grandeur 
of  the  system  and  of  the  rational  ends  possible  in  it. 

A  further  answer  is  that  whatever  God  does,  be  it  great  or 
little  in  itself,  he  will  do  it  like  God,  not  after  a  human  measure 
but  after  the  divine.  The  thing  produced  may  be  little,  but  in  it 
will  be  revealed  the  greatness  of  the  God  who  made  it.  Hence 
in  everything  is  a  door  which  opens  into  the  infinite.  If  we  study 
a  blade  of  grass,  or  a  pebble,  or  a  ray  of  light,  or  an  electric  spark, 
we  soon  come  to  questions  which  science  cannot  answer  and  which 
bring  us  face  to  face  with  God.  The  mystery  in  everything  is 
the  finger-print  of  the  infinite  hand  that  made  it.  Christ  says 
that  God  cares  for  a  sparrow.  If  you  study  the  sparrow,  you 
must  master  the  whole  encyclopaedia  of  the  sciences  before  you 
can  know  all  which  is  to  be  known  about  it.  Do  you  say  it  is 
unreasonable  and  incredible  that  God  should  expend  so  much 
thought  and  care  on  so  little  a  creature  ?  But  what  God  does 
must  reveal  God.  Therefore  all  lines  of  thought  and  knowledge 
are  found  converging  on  and  revealed  in  the  little  bird.  Jesus 
says  that  God  clothes  the  lily  with  beauty.  And  light,  heat, 
electricity,  chemical  affinity  and  all  the  cosmic  forces  are  concen- 

the  gospel  of  Jesus  Christ  must  be  a  divine  reality.  The  Sermon  on  the  Mount 
cannot  be  a  merely  human  production.  The  belief  enters  into  the  very  depth 
of  my  conscience.  The  whole  history  of  man  proves  it.”  —  Curtis,  Life  of  Web¬ 
ster,  vol.  ii.  p.  684. 


552 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  GOD. 


tred  on  the  lily  to  make  and  direct  its  growth,  the  central  sun  en¬ 
ergizes  in  its  service  to  quicken  it,  and  the  resources  of  earth,  air 
and  water  are  laid  under  contribution  for  its  nourishment.  The 
lily  as  it  grows  is  a  centre  to  all  the  physical  powers.  Is  it  in¬ 
credible  that  God  should  do  so  much  for  a  single  lily  ?  But  if  he 
causes  the  lily  to  grow  he  must  do  it  as  God,  and  the  lily  must 
reveal  the  riches  and  resources  of  God. 

How  much  more,  in  saving  man  from  sin  and  educating  and 
developing  him  to  spiritual  perfection,  must  he  reveal  the  God. 
It  is  not  wonderful  that  in  this  work  all  the  mightiest  agencies  of 
the  spiritual  world  should  be  concentred  on  the  man,  and  that 
“  the  depth  of  the  riches  both  of  the  wisdom  and  knowledge  of 
God  ”  should  be  revealed. 

A  further  answer  is  that  it  is  a  characteristic  of  God’s  action 
that  giving  does  not  impoverish  him  and  that  every  one  may  re¬ 
ceive  of  his  fulness.  Of  this  the  sun  is  an  emblem.  Every  indi¬ 
vidual  receives  its  light  and  heat  in  all  their  fulness,  while  leaving 
the  same  fulness  to  all.  Every  man,  every  sparrow,  every  lily  is 
the  centre  of  all  the  cosmic  energies.  So  in  the  spiritual  system 
every  person  is  a  central  recipient  of  all  divine  energies.  If  it  is 
the  befitting  action  of  God  that  the  sun  should  shine  and  the  rain 
fall  and  the  wind  blow  on  every  individual,  each  having  the  ful¬ 
ness  of  all,  it  is  also  befitting  that  the  Sun  of  Righteousness 
should  rise  and  the  dew  and  rain  of  heavenly  influence  descend 
and  the  divine  Spirit  breathe  on  every  man.  If  we  may  so  say, 
every  one  has  all.  It  is  simply  the  revelation  of  the  inexhausti¬ 
ble  and  unchanging  fulness  of  God. 

Other  personal  beings  beside  man  exist  or  will  hereafter  come 
into  being.  In  what  particular  way  God  may  reveal  himself 
among  them  we  have  no  means  of  knowing.  But  we  know  that 
it  will  be  in  some  way  in  which  every  one  may  have  the  opportu¬ 
nity  to  be  “  filled  with  the  fulness  of  God.”  What  he  has  done 
for  man  on  earth  detracts  nothing  from  the  fulness  of  grace  with 
which  he  may  come  to  personal  beings  in  other  worlds.  And  on 
the  other  hand,  the  existence  of  innumerable  other  worlds,  peo¬ 
pled  it  may  be  with  rational  beings,  constitutes  no  objection  to 
the  fulness  of  his  redeeming  grace  to  men. 


INDEX. 


♦ 


A. 

Abraham,  human  sacrifices  forbidden,  489, 
491;  historical  beginning  of  the  kingdom 
of  God  on  earth,  491. 

Absolute  Being,  5  f.,  151-229;  definition, 
154;  what  it  is  not  further  known  a  priori 
but  revealed  in  the  universe,  37,  153,  165, 
172  f.,  181  f. ;  existence  of,  known  as  a 
necessary  principle  of  reason  and  law  of 
thought,  79  f.,  151,  154  f. ;  its  denial  in¬ 
volves  universal  skepticism,  161 ;  objection 
that  a  finite  mind  cannot  be  conscious  of, 
95  ff;  knowledge  of,  inadequate  but  posi¬ 
tive  and  progressive,  95  f.,  159,  212,  216- 
219,  382 ;  objection  that  like  is  known  only 
by  like,  82  f.,  159  f.,  186,  257;  denial  that 
it  can  reveal  itself  in  creation  affirms  that 
it  is  limited,  91,  160,  176,  188  f.,  210,  243, 
302  f. ;  agreement  of  agnostics,  pantheists, 
materialistic  monists,  and  deists  in  affirm¬ 
ing  knowledge  that  the  absolute  exists,  5, 
163,  170,  222  f.,  241  f. ;  is  the  a  priori  ar¬ 
gument  in  its  true  meaning,  164  ;  gives 
unity  to  all  the  so-called  arguments, 
153  f.,  164  f. ;  established  by  Plato,  162; 
its  great  place  in  the  history  of  philosophy, 
162-164;  non-theistic  theories  as  related 
to  it,  166-206;  false  ideas  of,  173  f.,  210- 
212,  216-219 ;  not  a  negative  idea,  217  f . ; 
not  unknowable  in  itself,  173,  181  f. ;  the 
absolute  of  philosophy  identified  with  the 
God  whom  we  worship,  210-216;  objec¬ 
tion  that  the  absolute  is  a  spirit,  but  un¬ 
conscious  and  impersonal,  215  f.,  334-339; 
is  the  all-conditioning,  219-221;  basis  of 
apprehending  the  universe  in  science,  220; 
revealed  in  consciousness  of  finiteness, 
160,229;  personality  of,  212-216,  334-339; 
if  unconscious  and  impersonal,  inferior  to 
man,  335;  feelings  manifesting  sense  or 
consciousness  of,  17,  378-381  ;  absolute  , 
knowledge,  48  f.,  93  f .,  157-160 ;  absolute 
Spirit,  the  two  elements  in  the  idea  of  a 
divinity,  17  f.,  36  f.,  79  f . ;  absolute,  hy- 
postasizing  the  adjective,  218. 


Abuse,  use  and  disuse  of  faculties,  112  f. 

Acosmic  pantheism,  169. 

^Esthetic  sentiments  responsive  to  the  pres¬ 
ence  of  God,  the  absolute  Reason,  385- 
387. 

Agassiz,  contrast  of  vital  and  physical  phe¬ 
nomena,  320. 

Agnosticism,  Spencerian,  172-182;  defini¬ 
tion,  168 ;  partial,  not  complete,  172  f. ; 
rests  on  developing  the  absolute  a  priori , 
172 ;  rests  on  some  false  idea  of  the  abso¬ 
lute,  173  f. ;  rests  on  an  illegitimate  ap¬ 
plication  of  the  maxim,  definition  limits, 
174  f. ;  logically  involves  complete  agnos¬ 
ticism,  176;  inconsistent  with  itself,  176- 
181;  its  principles  would  consistently  lead 
to  theism,  172  f.,  181,  240,  249;  Mansel, 
the  absolute  limited  if  the  absence  of  lim¬ 
itation  is  predicated  of  it,  175  ;  the  ab¬ 
solute  unknowable  because  it  cannot  be 
classed,  215  f.;  agreement  with  theism, 
151,  163,  169,  172,  180  f.,  222-224,  240, 
249,  524;  religion  of,  21,  419  f.,  522;  the- 
istic  agnosticism,  95-97,  159,  212,  216-219, 
382;  exaggerated  statements  of,  219. 

Agreement  with  theism  of  non-theistic  theo¬ 
ries,  163,  169,  222-224. 

All-conditioning,  the,  implied  in  the  uncon¬ 
ditioned  or  absolute,  219-221. 

Almightiness,  not  a  capricious  will  unregu¬ 
lated  by  reason,  226  f.,  300,  302,  306,  316- 
319,  366  f.,  479  f.,  497  f.;  effects  com¬ 
mensurate  with  the  limitations  of  the  be¬ 
ings  on  and  through  which  it  acts,  301. 

Analogy,  physico-theological  proof  not  an 
argument  from,  332  f. ;  of  the  revelation 
of  God  and  of  the  outward  world,  48  f., 
377  f.,  398;  of  the  development  of  reli¬ 
gions  knowledge  and  of  the  science  of 
nature,  135  f.,  139,  208,  458,  470. 

Anarchists  find  belief  in  God  their  greatest 
obstacle,  430. 

Anaxagoras,  65;  sun  as  large  as  Pelopom 
nesus,  208:  universe  grounded  in  reason, 
165. 

Ancestors,  worship  of,  18,  21  f.,  362. 


554 


INDEX. 


Animism,  18  f.,  28,  42,  44,  63,  207. 

Anthropomorphism,  433-440,  511  f. ;  Fiske 
on  its  necessity,  180. 

Antinomies.  See  Contradictions. 

A  priori  argument  for  existence  of  God,  its 
true  significance,  164;  idea  of  the  abso¬ 
lute,  error  of  determining  what  the  abso¬ 
lute  is  from  it,  172  f.,  183  f. 

Aquinas,  Thomas,  two  classes  of  miracles, 
446. 

Archetypal  thought  of  God  is  the  constitu¬ 
tion  of  the  universe,  79,  115,  192,  219  f., 
227,  251,  256-260,  289,  292-294,  513. 

Arguments  for  the  existence  of  God,  their 
unity,  153  f.,  164  f. ;  objection,  it  is  not  a 
legitimate  object  of  proof,  61  if. ;  presup¬ 
poses  the  idea,  36-38,  61;  reasons  for  re¬ 
statement,  1-11;  objection  that  inferring 
God’s  existence  proves  his  dependence, 
62 ;  that  polytheists  used  the  same,  65. 

Aristotle,  65 ;  calls  rational  ideas  essences, 
78. 

Arnold,  M.,  religion  of  morality  and  emo¬ 
tion,  22-24,  524 ;  barren  realism  of  the 
materialist,  100;  impossibility  of  peace  in 
unbelief,  405,  417 ;  logia,  458;  ideal  Chris¬ 
tianity,  469;  miracles,  487;  significance 
of  incarnation,  Easter,  and  immortality, 
496,  503 

Arnold,  Thomas,  faith  is  reason  leaning  on 
God,  93. 

Ashmore,  religion  of  China,  385. 

Assimilation  of  truth,  115-119  ;  of  error, 
104-109. 

Assumptions  of  science.  See  Postulates. 

Atheism,  “bashful  atheists,”  166;  used  as 
equivalent  to  non-theistic  theories,  166  ; 
types  and  classification,  166-169 ;  positiv¬ 
ism,  170  f.;  Spencerian  agnosticism,  172- 
182  ;  pantheism,  182-201 ;  materialism, 
201-206 ;  its  different  forms  in  conflict, 
221;  in  each  form  points  of  agreement 
with  theism,  222-224  ;  theism  takes  all 
truths  recognized  in  non-theistic  theories, 
224;  prevalence  of  atheism  circumscribed 
and  sporadic,  348  f.;  short-lived,  349  f. ; 
objection  from  prevalence  of  Buddhism, 
350  f. ;  attended  with  credulity  and  super¬ 
stition,  351;  followed  by  revivals  of  re¬ 
ligious  faith,  351  f.  ;  removed  without 
argument,  352-354 ;  does  not  originate 
spontaneously,  354  ;  puts  us  to  permanent 
intellectual  confusion,  372  f.  ;  involves 
the  impossibility  of  knowledge,  75-82, 
246  f.,  393,  397  ;  belittles  man  and  the 
sphere  of  knowledge,  intellectual  suffo¬ 
cation,  382-384,  526-529  ;  richness  and 
strength  of  character  lost,  402-405 ;  legit¬ 
imately  issues  in  pessimism,  403,  527 ; 


disastrous  in  every  sphere  of  human  in¬ 
terest,  402-418,  526-529;  paralyzes  mo¬ 
tives  to  self-sacrificing  love,  and  dries  the 
springs  of  hope  and  enthusiasm,  417  f. ; 
historical  evidence  of  its  evil  influence, 
429  f. 

“At  Home,”  in  nature  and  the  supernat 
ural,  100,  108,  134-137,  200,  260,  290. 

Atom,  ultimate  unit  of  the  physical  system, 
184 ;  in  solid  singleness  suggests  no  be¬ 
ginning  or  cause,  191  ;  Clerk-Maxwell 
on,  203,  238 ;  theory  of,  incompatible  with 
pantheism,  184  f.,  201-203;  proof  of 
finiteness  of  the  universe  and  transcend¬ 
ence  of  the  absolute,  237-239;  fortuitous 
concurrence  of,  333;  vortex  atom,  266. 

Atonement,  continuity  of  law  in  redemption 
from  sin,  499. 

Attributes  of  God  do  not  imply  division  or 
limitation,  226  f. 

Augustine,  God  found  within,  101,  116; 
comprehensiveness  of  Christianity,  145 ; 
God  incomprehensible,  219 ;  carmen  secu- 
lorum ,  432;  law  distinguished  from  factual 
sequences,  480  ;  Christianity  and  Greek 
philosophy,  521;  victrix  delectatio,  516. 

Automaton,  spiritual,  194. 

Awakening  of  spiritual  capacities,  103-120. 

B. 

Bacon,  Lord,  115;  on  final  causes,  320, 
326  f . ;  Baconian  revival  in  science  pre¬ 
ceded  by  Luther’s  in  religion,  431. 

Basil,  Christians  like  bees  gathering  from 
all  flowers,  521. 

Beattie,  on  final  causes,  328. 

Beauty,  reveals  ideals  in  nature,  280  f. ;  re¬ 
veals  truth,  369-371;  reveals  God,  386  f. 

Becoming,  absolute,  the  flux  of  Heraclitus, 
189,  199. 

Belief  in  God,  intertwined  with  all  normal 
action,  94;  leads  to  consecration  and  sacri¬ 
fice,  95;  objection  that  it  never  becomes 
knowledge,  97-99;  spontaneous  in  all  re¬ 
ligions,  15  f.,  90  f.,  347  f. ;  generic,  spon¬ 
taneous,  powerful,  persistent,  345-353;  is 
constitutional  in  man,  353-364;  origin  of 
(see  Origin);  analogy  of  belief  m  the  out¬ 
ward  world  antecedent  to  scientific  knowl¬ 
edge  of  it,  364  f.,  398 ;  rooted  in  every 
part  of  man’s  constitution  as  personal,  86- 
91,  365-397;  necessary  to  reconcile  free¬ 
dom  and  dependence,  376;  exists  ante¬ 
cedent  to  science,  397-402  ;  analogy  of 
music,  398;  spontaneous  and  unelaborated 
in  the  uneducated  is  a  reasonable  faith, 
352  f.,  399-402;  practical  influence  in 


INDEX. 


555 


every  sphere  of  activity,  402-418;  arises 
from  uniformities,  and  not  merely  anoma¬ 
lies,  423  f. ;  is  evidence  that  God  exists, 
364  f. 

Bersier,  encyclicals  of  criticism,  130. 

Bias,  false  idea  of,  118-120. 

Bible,  God  revealed  in  it  when  it  “finds 
us,”  56  f. ;  studied  with  only  archaeolog¬ 
ical  and  critical  interest,  108  f.,  129-131; 
isolated  from  rational  thought,  131  f . ; 
what  it  is,  457-466 ;  fitted  to  be  the  book 
of  the  universal  religion,  530-532. 

Biedermann,  pantheistic  definition  of  reve¬ 
lation,  73;  imperfection  inseparable  from 
the  finite,  303 ;  the  absolute  is  spirit,  but 
unconscious,  335 ;  God  revealed  in  redemp¬ 
tion  through  Christ,  470. 

Biology  leads  to  the  door  which  opens  into 
the  presence  of  God,  512,  513. 

Blindness,  spiritual,  83,  103-109. 

Boehme,  mysticism,  123. 

Boethius,  tinder  in  the  soul,  402. 

Boole,  false  idea  of  cause,  243. 

Bossuet,  immutable  principles  of  reason, 
375. 

Brain,  molecular  action  of,  and  thought, 
various  theories,  508-511 ;  reveals  the 
supernatural  in  man,  511-513. 

Browning,  Mr.,  on  humanity-worship,  420. 

Browning,  Mrs.,  no  reconciliation  of  man 
with  his  environment  without  God,  403; 
every  common  bush  afire  with  God,  86. 

Buchner,  Dr.,  223. 

Buckle,  extirpation  of  superstition  by  con¬ 
centrating  population  in  cities,  519. 

Bunyan,  appropriating  and  assimilating 
truth,  116. 

Burnouf,  idea  of  a  God  precedes  the  sen¬ 
suous  conception,  361. 

Bushnell,  illustration  from  concentric 
spheres,  339. 

Butler,  Bp.,  revelation  to  be  judged  by  rea¬ 
son,  136 ;  republication  of  natural  religion, 
521. 

Butler,  Prof.  Wm.  A.,  all  science  has  its 
root  in  the  invisible  world,*  262  f. 

Buxtorf,  inspiration  of  Hebrew  vowel-points, 
128. 

c. 

Candor  and  impartiality,  false  idea  of, 
118  f. 

Capacity  of  man  to  receive  God’s  revelation 
and  to  know  him  through  it,  74-102;  needs 
awakening,  103-120. 

Caprice  not  an  essential  characteristic  of 
will,  nor  implied  in  almightiness,  226,  300, 
305  f.,  316-319,  479  f.,  497  f.  ' 


Carlyle,  absentee  God,  211 ;  the  supernatural 
in  the  natural,  289 ;  man  not  coaxed  with 
sugar-plums,  312. 

Carnivorous  animals,  objection  founded  on, 
303. 

Carpenter,  Dr.,  unconscious  coordination  of 
experience,  94;  notion  of  force  indispen¬ 
sable,  244;  science  points  to  the  origination 
of  all  power  in  mind,  249;  what  science 
is,  261. 

Causal  energy,  law  of  both  in  the  physical 
and  spiritual  systems,  534-541. 

Causation,  principle  of,  existence  of  the 
absolute  Being  not  proved  by  it,  154  f., 
499  f. 

Cause,  First,  absolute  Being  revealed  in  the 
universe  as,  233-250;  objection  that  it  im¬ 
plies  a  beginning,  240  f. ;  objection  that  it 
is  only  adequate  to  the  effect,  241 ;  objec¬ 
tion  that  the  effect  is  the  exact  equivalent 
of  the  cause,-  242  f. ;  Hegel’s  objection 
that  inferring  a  cause  from  an  effect  proves 
that  the  cause  is  conditioned  by  the  ef¬ 
fect,  243 ;  that  a  cause  is  a  mere  antece¬ 
dent,  243  f. ;  that  belief  in  a  cause  results 
from  mental  impotence,  244  ;  that  the 
causal  judgment  results  from  association 
of  ideas,  as  presented  by  Prof.  Clifford, 
244  f. ;  objection  of  Physicus,  245-247;  of 
Mr.  Spencer,  157. 

Cause  and  will ;  is  the  idea  of  will  essential 
in  the  idea  of  cause?  247-250  ;  not  a  par¬ 
ticular  act  of  the  will  of  God  in  every 
motion,  249,  337-339. 

156  f.,  241  f. 

Cave-men,  pictures  and  implements,  though 
rude,  prove  rationality,  296. 

Centre  to  the  action  of  the  universe,  every 
man  is,  87  f.,  367,  377,  422  f.,  551  f. 

Certainty,  highest,  not  given  by  the  senses, 

Champollion,  science  deciphers  symbols  in 
nature,  261. 

Chance,  creation  by,  333  f. 

Chaos  assumed  by  objectors  to  theism, 
334. 

Character,  likeness  of,  necessary  to  mutual 
intelligibility,  83  ;  how  a  sinner  can  know, 
God,  83. 

Charity,  when  pernicious,  535  f.,  538  f. 

Cheever,  G.  B.,  atheism  removed  without 
argument,  352  f. 

Christ,  the  great  evidence  of  Christianity, 
142;  characteristics  of  God’s  revelation 
through,  443-473;  reveals  by  what  he  is 
and  does  more  than  by  what  he  says,  445, 
446-448,  457-459  ;  the  ideal  inseparable 
from  the  historical,  469-473;  Head  of  a 
new  humanity,  471,  515,  539  f. ;  central 
in  theology  and  history,  133  f.,  143  f., 


556 


INDEX. 


443  f.,  450,  473,  516;  God’s  revelation  in, 
continues  and  consummates  the  revelation 
in  nature  and  man,  515-532;  the  eternal 
reason  in  him  revealed  in  human  reason, 

516  f. ;  the  Light,  the  Life  and  the  Love, 

517  f. ;  reveals  the  worth  of  man,  and 
quickens  to  realize  the  highest  possibilities 
of  the  individual  and  of  society,  526-529 ; 
reveals  the  fundamental  law  of  the  uni¬ 
verse,  the  higher  going  down  to  the  lower 
to  lift  it  up,  539  f. 

Christian  consciousness,  33-36. 

Christianity,  takes  up  the  truths  of  the  eth¬ 
nic  religions,  15,  518-526 ;  three  principal 
lines  of  evidence,  443 ;  distinctive  and  es¬ 
sential  fact  of,  444,  450 ;  teaches  that  God 
first  seeks  men,  other  religions  that  men 
first  seek  God,  470  f. ;  objection  that  it 
cannot  take  up  and  vitalize  the  varied 
knowledge  and  activity  of  the  present 
age,  546-550;  objection  founded  on  the 
vastness  of  the  universe,  550-552;  tested 
by  the  progress  of  thought  and  civilization 
in  all  ages,  528  f.,  531  f. ;  is  the  one  uni¬ 
versal  religion,  529-532;  this  involved  in 
the  idea  of  God  in  Christ  reconciling  the 
world  to  himself,  529 ;  its  power  of  adap¬ 
tation,  530  f. ;  only  basis  for  a  true  philos¬ 
ophy  of  human  historjT,  528. 

Christian  pantheism,  212. 

Cicero,  65,  339,  346. 

Civilization,  knowledge  of  God  necessary  to 
its  progress,  405-418,  430-433. 

Claudius,  dispersion  of  heat,  205. 

Clement  of  Alexandria,  11,  57,  73,  520  f. 

Clifford.  Prof.,  mind-stuff  in  every  moving 
molecule,  169 ;  the  world  perceived  is  my 
perception,  171  f. ;  the  causal  judgment, 
244  f. ;  effects  of  atheism,  404;  our  Father 
Man,  420  f . ;  consciousness  and  molecular 
motion,  509-514. 

Clock,  its  ticking  mistaken  for  its  final 
cause,  330. 

Cole,  S.  V.,  the  God-sphere,  339  f. 

Coleridge,  the  Bible,  56. 

Communion  with  a  divinity  of  the  essence 
of  religion,  18,  39  f .,  82  f. ;  excluded  by 
pantheism,  195  f.,  201,  225. 

Comprehensiveness  of  Christianity,  145,  518- 
526 ;  of  theism,  224. 

Comte,  theory  of  religion,  22,  222,  419-421, 
522-524;  his  phenomenalism  left  behind 
by  science,  161  f. ;  atheism  of  positivism, 
167,  170  f. ;  admit  any  cause  and  God  must 
be  admitted,  177;  atheists  the  most  illog¬ 
ical  of  theologians,  231 ;  prevision  the  cri¬ 
terion  of  science,  261 ;  excludes  efficient 
as  well  as  final  causes,  320 ;  awakening  of 
his  religious  susceptibilities,  351  f.;  on 


consternation,  380;  man  not  the  lowest  of 
the  angels,  but  the  highest  of  the  brutes, 
412 ;  law  of  the  progress  of  thought,  426- 
429. 

Concessions  of  theists  unwarranted,  209  f., 
211  f. 

Concrete  thought  in  theologv,  3,  4,  57  f.,  99- 
102,  135-137,  140-149. 

Conscience  reveals  God,  376,  384  f. 

Consciousness,  its  different  meanings,  30  f. ; 
sense  in  which  God  is  known  in  con¬ 
sciousness,  31-33;  Christian  consciousness, 
33-36 ;  elements  of  the  idea  of  God  given 
in  consciousness,  36-38;  deeper  meaning 
in  which  God  himself  is  known  in  con¬ 
sciousness,  38-47,74;  moral  consciousness, 
44  f.  ;  scientific  consciousness,  45 ;  distin¬ 
guished  from  the  pantheistic  use,  32,  34, 
72  f.,  259  f. ;  in  what  sense  God  is  the 
background  of  self-consciousness,  47,  72  f ., 
151,  393  f. ;  subject  and  object  of,  33, 
74;  of  God  through  the  spiritual  feelings, 
377-393;  of  the  individual  on  a  basis  of 
universality,  367  f. ;  predicable  of  the  ab¬ 
solute  Spirit  without  limitation,  334-339 ; 
analogy  of  unconsciousness  of  genius, 
338  f. 

Consecration,  legitimate  issue  of  religious 
belief,  95. 

Constitution  of  man  as  personal,  religious 
belief  rooted  in  it,  86-89,  365-402;  in  the 
reason,  86  f.,  366-375;  in  his  moral  con¬ 
stitution  as  free  will,  89,  375-378;  in  the 
susceptibility  to  motives  and  emotions, 
87  f.,  378-393;  in  every  part  of  his  con¬ 
stitution  as  personal,  89,  393-397 ;  shown 
also  by  universality,  spontaneity,  power 
and  persistence  of  religious  belief,  345- 
365;  objection  that  if  religion  is  constitu¬ 
tional,  the  object  of  woi’ship  is  wholly 
subjective,  424  f. 

Constitution  of  the  universe  is  the  arche¬ 
typal  thought  of  God  expressed  in  it,  78  f., 
115,  219  f.,  227,  251,  256-260,  289,  292- 

294,  513;  if  no  God,  all  reason  and  reason¬ 
ableness  annihilated,  227-229. 

Continuity,  law  of  the  physical  system,  267- 
272;  unity  and  continuity  of  the  physical 
and  spiritual,  287-292,  341,  505-515;  the 
law  passes  from  the  spiritual  to  the  phys¬ 
ical,  not  from  the  physical  to  the  spiritual, 
289  f.,  505-508. 

Contradictions  in  physical  science  without 
God,  205,  239  f.,  269  f.,  272,  292,  381, 
499  f. ;  same  true  of  philosophy,  272. 

Cooke,  Prof.  J.  P.,  imperfection  of  the  eye, 

295. 

Copernicus  withdrew  the  seat  from  the 
Deity,  317. 


INDEX. 


Cork-tree,  as  evidence  of  God’s  goodness, 
294. 

Correspondence  of  nature  and  spirit,  shown 
in  human  action  and  language,  264  f. 

Cosmic  theism,  180  f. 

Cosmical  weather,  170. 

Cosmological  argument,  233-250 ;  is  the  ar¬ 
gument  from  the  contingency  of  the  world, 
234. 

Cosmos-worship,  24. 

Cousin,  effect  of  his  lectures  in  Paris,  163 ; 
the  absolute  cognizable  under  difference, 
plurality  and  relation,  181. 

Creation,  not  completed  at  a  stroke,  54  f., 
210-212  ;  difficulty  of  conceiving  a  begin¬ 
ning,  240  f. 

Credentials,  miracles  not  merely,  496  f. 

Criticism,  biblical,  authority,  130;  isolation 
from  experience  and  doctrine,  129-132. 

Culture,  determines  what  reality  is  discov¬ 
ered  in  an  object,  66  f. ;  and  the  extent  of 
possible  revelation,  68;  assimilating  and 
organizing  truth  into  life  and  growth  and 
power,  115-118;  enlarges  man’s  power  to 
know,  117  f. ;  ineffective  without  God, 
133  f. ;  poverty  of  atheistic  culture,  406- 
416 ;  theism  deepens  and  enriches,  422 ; 
proposed  as  a  substitute  for  religion, 
422  f. 

D. 

Dante,  God’s  word  never  fully  expressed  in 
the  universe,  300. 

Darwin,  ascribes  causal  force  to  law,  318  f. ; 
examples  of  final  cause  in  plants,  283  f. ; 
language  implying  final  cause,  320  f., 
437 ;  final  cause  in  the  eye,  330. 

Dawson,  Dr.,  415  f. 

D’Azeglio,  miracles,  476. 

Deaf-mutes  acquiring  the  idea  of  God, 
356  f. 

Death,  objection  founded  on,  303. 

Definition  or  determinateness  limits,  misap¬ 
plication  of  the  maxim,  174-176,  186-188, 
213. 

Degeneration  of  religions,  29,  361,  426  f. 

Deism,  140. 

Dependence,  sense  of,  390  f. ;  not  the  only 
root  of  religious  belief,  25,  391,  394  f. 

Descartes,  the  infinite  not  a  negative  idea, 
217 ;  objection  to  evidence  from  final 
causes,  324. 

Development  by  action  and  use,  enfeeble- 
ment  by  disuse  or  abuse,  112  f. 

Diman,  Prof.,  belief  in  God  resting  on  feel¬ 
ing  only  is  superstition,  395. 

Discipline,  moral,  from  progressiveness  of 
revelation,  208  f. 


557 

Discontent,  revealing  relation  to  the  spirit¬ 
ual  system  and  to  God,  387  f. 

Ditheism,  207. 

Divinity,  essence  of  the  idea,  as  absolute 
spirit,  17  f.,  36  f.,  64  f.,  378,  389  f.;  pro¬ 
gressive  development  of  the  idea  analo¬ 
gous  with  development  of  scientific  ideas, 
16,  39,  66-68,  207-209,  354,  363,  397- 
399. 

Dogmatism,  issues  in  rationalism,  exempli¬ 
fied  in  Protestant  theology,  127-129;  the 
reaction,  139-143  ;  continued  movement  of 
theological  thought,  143-149. 

Dorner,  Dr.,  13,  28. 

Dumont,  Leon,  order  and  law  prove  the  ab¬ 
sence  of  will,  316. 

Drummond,  natural  law  in  the  spiritual 
world,  his  error,  289  f.,  505  f. 

Dysteleology,  304. 

E. 

Eckart,  mysticism,  123. 

Economics,  laisser  faire  theory,  538,  541. 

Education,  in  the  knowledge  of  God,  207- 
209,  493;  presupposes  capacities  and  seeds 
of  thought,  355-357,  401  f. ;  of  Israel  in 
monotheism,  489  -  491  ;  of  man  in  the 
spiritual  system,  493;  in  preparation  for 
Christ,  518-521. 

Ego.  See  Self. 

Eleatic  philosophy,  192  f. 

Eliot,  George,  ideas  often  poor  ghosts,  144; 
immortality,  503;  Jesus  a  Jewish  philos¬ 
opher,  525 ;  her  experience  in  substituting 
philosophy  for  religion,  525  f. 

Emergencies,  revealing  hidden  powers  of  a 
nation,  112. 

Emerson,  R.  W.,  follow  nature,  196  f. 

Ends,  realm  of,  285;  man  an  end  in  him¬ 
self,  and  therefore  immortal,  501  f. 

Environment,  spiritual,  32  f.,  35,  50,  54  f., 
74,  85  f.,  87  f.,  93  f.,  395  f.,  481;  the  soul 
closed  against  it  by  sin,  104-109. 

Epochal  miracles  in  the  spiritual  system  and 
the  physical,  486-497,  514. 

Epochs,  in  evolution  of  the  physical  system, 
488  f. ;  in  the  history  of  the  spiritual  sys¬ 
tem,  489-492;  continuity  in  the  whole,  489, 
492-494;  Christ  the  central  epoch,  493, 
515  f. ;  why  the  greater  epochs  delayed, 
493 ;  the  new  power  revealed  in  each 
epoch  remains  permanent,  492  f.,  516- 
518. 

Equivalents,  intellectual,  of  objective  real¬ 
ity,  219  f.,  256-260. 

Error  incidental  to  progress  of  knowledge, 
60  f.,  63-66. 

Ethnic  religions,  16-20,  27-29,  42-45,  346- 


558 


INDEX. 


348,  350,  358-364,  452  f.,  454,  456;  and 
Christianity,  15  f.,  470  f.,  518^-522. 

Evil,  sought  as  good,  106  f.;  moral  and 
phj'sical,  297 ;  physical  evil  an  objection 
against  theism,  297-316. 

Evolution,  nature  not  finished,  but  plastic,  a 
growth,  not  a  casting,  54  f.,  210  f.,  278- 
280 ;  gradation  in  the  organic  and  inor¬ 
ganic  as  existing,  277  f.  ;  process  and 
progress  toward  an  ideal,  278-280,  322 ;  its 
type  the  growth  of  an  organism,  286,  322 ; 
implies  a  beginning  of  motion,  and  an  im¬ 
manent  power  transcending  the  universe, 
239  f.;  teleology  of,  273,  278-280,  284, 
285-287,  325  f.,  *328-330,  331 ;  demands 
the  recognition  of  man  as  personal  and 
supernatural,  343-345  ;  points  to  immor¬ 
tality,  344  f.,  501 ;  the  lower  man’s  ori¬ 
gin,  the  more  his  greatness  reveals  God, 
353;  demands  reason  in  harmony  with 
man’s,  regnant  in  the  evolution,  366  f. ; 
without  God,  serves  no  purpose  of  religion 
or  ethics,  408  f. ;  involves  epochal  mira¬ 
cles,  486,  488  f.,  492. 

Ewald,  Moses  the  man  of  God,  462 ;  proph¬ 
ecy,  451. 

Experience,  knowledge  of  God  in,  30-47, 
136 ;  God  found  within,  101  f. ;  human, 
not  a  measure  of  the  possible,  499-501. 

Extra-sensible  reality,  points  to  the  exist¬ 
ence  of  Spirit,  513. 

Eye,  as  showing  design,  274,  330;  alleged 
imperfection,  295  f. 

Ezekiel,  chap,  i.,  theophany,  71. 

F. 

Factors,  in  the  knowledge  of  God,  5,  61, 

122. 

Faith,  condition  of  justification  correlative 
to  dependence,  and  the  only  basis  of  right 
character,  23  f.,  105  f.,  405  f.,  411  f.,  541- 
546 ;  participation  in  divine  love  and  in¬ 
spiration  of  life,  376  f.,  402-405;  practical 
power  in  every  sphere  of  life,  405-418;  of 
uneducated  believers  reasonable,  352  f., 
399-402;  reason  leaning  on  God,  93. 

Faith-facultv,  89-95 ;  no  new  faculty  im¬ 
parted  by  God’s  Spirit,  114  f. ;  belief  in 
God  rooted  in  the  entire  personality  of 
man,  89,  94,  393-397. 

Fanaticism,  arising  from  mysticism,  123- 
126. 

Fear,  in  the  ethnic  religions,  42 ;  religion  of, 
124  ;  a  constitutional  religious  sentiment, 
380,  396. 

Feelings,  divorced  from  reason,  issue  in  mys¬ 
ticism  and  fanaticism,  122-127;  sponta¬ 


neous  belief  in  God  arising  from,  347  f., 
351-353, 364  f.,  397-402  ;  religious,  through 
which  God  is  revealed,  377-393;  bound¬ 
less  and  intense,  389  f. ;  relation  to  reason, 
122-127,  132-139,  394  f. 

Ffinelon,  Ulysses  and  Grillus,  106 ;  the  idea 
of  the  finite  negative,  of  the  infinite  posi¬ 
tive,  217. 

Fetichism,  recognizes  an  unseen  divinity 
that  can  be  communed  with,  28,  42,  63, 
167,  207,  359-363;  not  the  primitive  reli¬ 
gion,  and  often  associated  with  elevated 
ideas  of  the  divinity,  361  f.,  426  f. 

Feuerbach,  objections,  65,  72,  157,  334 ;  God 
identical  with  man,  73;  materialism,  106; 
definitions  of  God,  421;  worship  of  the 
great  negation,  422 ;  religion  sacrifices 
man  to  God,  125,  198 ;  necessity  of  postu¬ 
lating  absolute  Being,  162. 

Fichte,  I.  H.,  the  unconditioned,  151. 

Fichte,  J.  G.,  universal  Ego  is  the  uncon¬ 
scious  moral  order  of  the  universe,  168; 
persons  known  only  as  finite,  215. 

Final  Cause,  the  objection  that  knowledge 
how  a  thing  is  done  proves  that  it  was  not 
done  intelligently,  327,  329  ;  the  incidental 
mistaken  for  it,  330;  and  efficient  cause 
two  aspects  of  the  same,  330  f. ;  the  ar¬ 
gument  from,  272-287 ;  is  but  a  part  of 
the  evidence  from  nature,  255,  320 ;  objec¬ 
tions,  319-331. 

Finch,  A.  E.,  will  incompatible  with  law, 
316. 

Finite,  the,  possibility  of  God’s  revealing 
himself  in,  essential  to  his  illimitation  or 
absoluteness,  91,  160,  176,  188  f.,  210,  243, 
302 ;  God’s  revelation  in,  progressive  and 
never  completed,  299-306,  507,  514;  finite 
things  not  mere  modes  of  the  existence  of 
the  absolute,  183,  184  f.,  186 ;  knowledge 
of  implies  knowledge  of  the  absolute,  160, 
215. 

Finiteness,  not  of  the  essence  of  personality, 
214  f.,  335,  337. 

Fiske,  John,  teleology,  180,  286,  325  f. ; 
evolution  issues  in  the  rational  and  super¬ 
natural,  343-345;  permanent  intellectual 
confusion,  372  f. ;  anthropomorphism,  180, 
435;  science  must  postulate  universal  rea¬ 
son  in  harmony  with  man’s,  192,  439; 
symbols,  180,  533  f. ;  cosmic  theism,  180. 

FlfigeJ,  162,  187,  209. 

Force,  sum  of  always  the  same,  161,  235  f. ; 
without  God,  the  absurdity  of  perpetual 
motion,  237,  268  f.,  480  f . ;  surreptitiously 
ascribed  to  law  or  identified  with  it,  318  f. ; 
correlation  and  conservation  of,  does  not 
account  for  mind,  343,  508-511;  progress 
marked  by  relatively  greater  admiration 


INDEX. 


559 


in  recognition  of  spiritual  influence,  385  f., 
537. 

Forms  of  reason,  76-79,  86. 

Formulas,  danger  of  stopping  in  the  words, 
128  f.,  140,  148. 

Foster,  John,  miracles,  497. 

Fourier,  on  the  passions,  407. 

Freedom,  Spinoza’s  definition,  193  f. ;  knowl¬ 
edge  of  free  power  originates  in  our  con¬ 
sciousness  of  power,  248;  of  will,  God 
revealed  in  man’s,  89,  375-377,  reconcil¬ 
iation  of  freedom  and  necessity  by  faith 
in  God,  376,  403-405. 

Fremantle,  on  Christian  fellowship  with 
agnostics,  146. 

French  revolution,  atheism  of,  166. 

G. 

Galileo,  discussion  of  the  cycloid,  262;  infal¬ 
libility  and  his  condemnation,  531. 

Ghost-theory  of  the  origin  of  religion,  18, 
21  f.,  64  f.,  360-362;  ghosts,  fear  of,  348, 
391-393. 

God,  three  factors  in  the  knowledge  of,  5, 
61,  122;  origin  and  development  of  the 
idea,  16-20,  21  f.,  63-69,  345-364,  how 
mistakes  originate,  18-20,  63  f.  ;  these  do 
not  discredit  the  belief,  16,  64-66;  knowl¬ 
edge  of,  rooted  in  the  whole  constitution  of 
man  as  personal,  86-89,  365-402;  knowl¬ 
edge  of,  partial  but  positive,  80,  95-97, 
159  f  ,  212,  216-219,  382;  the  absolute  of 
philosophy  and  the  God  of  religion  identi¬ 
fied,  209-216;  as  absolute  reason,  the  nec¬ 
essary  postulate  of  all  science,  45-47,  227, 
366-375 ;  is  conscious  personal  spirit,  212- 
215,  334-339;  falsely  conceived  as  will  un¬ 
regulated  by  reason,  211,  299-301,  305  f., 
316-319,  479  f.,  487 ;  legitimate  issue  of 
scientific  thought,  513  f.,  seeking  man,  470. 

Goeschel,  thought  and  being,  374. 

Goethe,  54,  87,  100,  161,  182,  183,  196,  231, 
294  f.,  310,  382,  413,  418,  463. 

Good,  the,  80,  371;  repelled  as  evil,  106- 
109;  the  true,  307,  308  f.,  310,  311-313; 
the  feelings  pertaining  to,  reveal  God,  387- 
390,  and  knowledge  of  God,  416-418. 

Gradation  in  the  organic  and  the  inorganic, 
277  f. 

Gray,  Prof.  Asa.,  science  and  religion,  319. 

Green,  Prof.  T.  H.,  aim  of  philosophy,  251 ; 
free  will  supernatural,  474. 

Grote,  A.  R.,  if  religion  is  constitutional  it 
has  no  objective  truth,  424  ;  Christianity 
a  veneering  of  paganism,  425. 

Grove,  W.  R.,  causation  implies  the  will  of 
God,  249. 


Guilt  and  sin,  consciousness  of,  implies  con¬ 
sciousness  of  God,  384  f. 

Guyon,  Madame,  mysticism,  123. 

H. 

Haeckel,  Prof.,  definition  of  materialism, 
201;  scientific  and  ethical  materialism, 
223;  dysteleologv,  304;  evolution  annuls 
the  evidence  from  final  causes,  326. 

Hamerton,  P.  G.,  misrepresentation  of 
Christianity,  549  f. 

Hamilton,  Sir  Win.,  unpictured  notions  of 
intelligence,  158 ;  no  partial  knowledge  of 
God,  159;  great  place  of  the  absolute  in 
the  history  of  philosophy,  162  f. ;  mis¬ 
takes  the  absolute  for  the  mathematical 
sum  total,  174;  negative  knowledge,  172, 
175,  177  f.,  217;  inconsistency,  178-180; 
immorality.  179. 

Harnack,  Adolf,  comprehensiveness  of 
Christianity,  521. 

Harrison,  Fred.,  agnosticism,  180;  religion 
of  agnosticism,  408  f.,  419  ;  worship  of 
humanity,  222,  419  f.,  522 ;  accepts  Spen¬ 
cer’s  caricature  of  theism  as  philosophical 
and  unanswerable,  435  ;  they  refute  each 
other,  524  ;  objection  that  Christianity 
cannot  take  up  and  vitalize  modern 
thought  and  life,  546-550 ;  what  is  de¬ 
manded  of  religion,  405. 

Hartmann,  the  absolute,  151 ;  nature  rests  on 
the  supernatural,  231;  preference  of  the 
savage  to  the  civilized,  and  of  brutes  to 
men,  107 ;  God  is  spirit  impersonal  and 
unconscious,  215,  223,  334;  not  holy,  226; 
efficient  and  final  cause,  330;  the  absolute 
the  largest  general  notion,  187. 

Harvey,  final  causes,  322. 

Hawthorne,  God  known  from  within,  102. 

Hedge,  Prof.,  ideal  Christ  derived  from  the 
historical,  473. 

Hedonism,  founded  in  the  nature-side  of 
man,  103  ;  basis  of,  in  ethical  materialism, 
223. 

Hegel,  13  f.,  43,  75,  91,  120,  145,  187,  200, 
218,  225  f.,  241,  258,  259,  290,  485. 

Heine  H.,  bashful  atheists,  166;  personifi¬ 
cation,  265;  Venus  of  Milo,  390  f. 

Hellenism,  as  a  substitute  for  Christianity, 
422  f. 

Helmholtz,  imperfection  of  the  eye,  295. 

Hennell,  Jesus  “A  Jewish  Philosopher,” 
525. 

Heraclitus,  absolute  becoming,  189. 

Herbert,  Geo.,  67. 

Herschel,  Sir  John,  gravitation  a  result  of 
conscious  will,  249. 


560 


INDEX. 


Hilaire,  G.  St.,  final  cause  and  crutches, 
328. 

Hill,  Thomas,  262. 

Historical  revelation,  121,  129  f.,  133,  444  f., 
446-451,  457-469  ;  and  prophetic,  42,  56, 
451-454. 

History,  human,  revelation  of  God  in,  423- 
433. 

Hobbes,  miracles  and  pills,  487. 

Hodge,  Prof.  C.,  209. 

Holiness,  pantheistic  denial  of  compatibility 
with  the  absolute,  209,  218,  226. 

Holy  of  Holies,  significance,  70. 

Honor  and  shame,  sense  of,  implies  man’s 
relation  to  God,  388  f. 

Hooker,  R.,  God  incomprehensible,  219. 

Horace,  purple  patch,  92;  the  garden-god, 
199;  varying  errors  of  atheism,  221. 

Humanity,  worship  of,  22,  222,  419-421, 
522-524. 

Humboldt,  the  extraordinary*  excites  fear, 
not  hope,  380. 

Hume,  not  the  protagonist  for  Spencerian 
agnosticism,  177 ;  recognizes  final  causes, 
321 ;  no  experience  in  world-building, 
331-333;  absurdity  of  fortuitous  concur¬ 
rence  of  atoms,  333  f. ;  mind  an  agitation 
of  brain,  343;  infinite  spider,  434;  mira¬ 
cles  contrary  to  universal  experience, 
494,  499-501* 

Humor,  implies  man’s  superiority  to  his 
physical  condition,  389. 

Huxley,  worship  of  the  Unknowable,  21; 
the  name  agnostic,  176 ;  misapprehension 
of  Hume,  177 ;  the  mechanical  does  not 
exclude  the  teleological,  329;  materialistic 
civilization,  413  f. ;  science  gives  no  war¬ 
rant  for  materialism,  204;  molecular  mo¬ 
tion  the  cause  of  consciousness,  508. 

Hvpostasizing  the  adjectives  absolute,  infi¬ 
nite,  finite,  218;  the  copula,  174. 

Hypothesis,  of  Newtonian  induction,  in 
proving  the  existence  of  God,  252,  332  ; 
verification,  253,  292-294. 

I. 

Ideal  and  historical  Christ,  469-473. 

Idealistic  pantheism,  168. 

Ideals,  progressively  realized  in  particular 
things  and  processes,  274-277 ;  in  the  cos¬ 
mos,  277-280;  revealed  in  the  beautiful, 
280  f. 

Ideas,  objectively  real,  78,  256-259,  437- 
439 ;  of  reason  referred  to  the  universal 
Reason,  79  f. ;  of  Plato,  78,  192,  259,  437; 
of  Hegel,  259  f. ;  ghostly  till  embodied, 
144. 


Uluminism,  81,  416,  550. 

Image  of  God,  man  in,  82-86,  337;  Lotze 
on,  337. 

Imagination  cannot  create  the  primitive  idea 
of  God,  358  ;  anticipates  philosophical 
thought  in  shaping  it,  358. 

Immanence  of  God  in  the  universe,  7,  54  f., 
140,  199-201,  210-212,  225,  293,  299-301, 
316-318,  485;  and  transcendence,  190  f., 
198,  211  f .,  219  f . ;  science  finds  a  tran¬ 
scendent  power  immanent  in  nature,  480- 
484. 

Immortality,  origin  of  the  belief,  64  f. ;  indi¬ 
cated  by  evolution,  343-345;  longing  for, 
reveals  man’s  relation  to  God,  388;  neces¬ 
sary  if  man  is  an  end  in  himself,  501  f. ; 
compatible  with  man’s  connection  with 
the  body,  512  f. 

Imperfection,  metaphysical,  301  f. 

Impotence,  mental,  not  the  origin  of  rational 
intuitions,  176,  244. 

Incidental  miracles,  445,  494  f. ;  occur  at 
epochs,  no  one  of  them  essential  to  re¬ 
demption,  494  f.,  502  ;  possibility  of, 
514  f. 

Indifference,  claimed  as  essential  to  scientific 
and  unbiased  investigation,  81. 

Individual  being,  the  unit  of  thought  and  of 
reality,  74,  76  f.,  184  f.,  187. 

Individuality  is  indivisibility  and  identity, 
and  predicable  of  the  absolute,  337. 

Indra,  prayer  to,  43. 

Induction,  Newtonian,  in  the  physico-theo- 
logical  argument,  252,  332. 

Industrial  progress,  influence  of  Christianity 
on,  430. 

Infinite,  sense  of,  17,  378-382;  series,  155  f., 
237 ;  never  fully  expressed  in  the  finite, 
299.  See  Absolute,  and  Progressiveness. 

Inner  light,  123. 

Insensibility  of  the  sinner  to  spiritual  real¬ 
ities  and  motives,  103-109;  capacity  to 
know  God  remains,  109-114. 

Instincts  indicate  objective  reality,  396. 

Intellectual  equivalents  of  reality,  208,  219  f., 
256-260. 

Intelligibility  of  all  reality,  79,  236,  256  f.i 
258,  533.  * 

“In  the  beginning  God,”  506,  533. 

Intuition,  rational,  confirmed  by  all  science, 
260-264. 

Inventions  useless  till  civilization  grows  up 
to  them,  68 ;  reveal  symbolism  in  nature, 
261  f. 

Israel,  alleged  fetichism  and  polytheism, 

489  f. ;  education  in  monotheism,  68, 

490  f. ;  its  literature  not  the  natural  out¬ 
growth  of  its  life,  490  f. ;  formal  institu¬ 
tion  of  political  and  ecclesiastical  organi- 


INDEX. 


561 


zation,  491 ;  its  truth  taken  up  into  Chris¬ 
tianity,  451-454,  492  f.,  518. 

J. 

Jacobi,  inference  that  God  exists  implies  his 
dependence,  62;  reason-sense,  75;  reason 
and  faith,  80 ;  difficulty  of  identifying  the 
absolute  Being  with  the  personal  God,  209 ; 
analogy  of  sense-perception  and  spiritual, 
398  f. 

Janet,  religion  constitutional,  364. 

Jenyns,  Soame,  internal  evidence  of  Chris¬ 
tianity,  140. 

Jesuits  and  Canadian  Indians,  64. 

Jevons,  mathematical  equations  solved  by 
every  atom,  262 ;  experience  not  the  limit 
of  possibility,  500  f. 

Justification  by  faith,  founded  on  a  univer¬ 
sal  law  of  finite  beings,  105  f.,  411  f.,  541- 
546. 

Justin  Martyr,  the  whole  race  had  part  in 
the  Logos,  520. 

K. 

Kahnis,  German  illuminati,  416. 

Kant,  consciousness,  32;  fixed  belief  in  God, 
44 ;  thing  in  itself,  80;  results  of  his 
philosophy,  163;  conception  of  God,  167; 
education  by  progressiveness  of  revelation, 
209 ;  personality  known  only  as  finite, 
215;  the  mechanical  does  not  exclude  the 
teleological,  329;  God  revealed  in  the 
practical  reason,  390 ;  idea  underlying 
products  of  nature,  437  ;  monotheism 
shimmers  through  polytheism,  518. 

Keary,  origin  of  religion,  359  f. 

Kingdom  of  Christ,  distinctive  of  Christian¬ 
ity,  471  f. ;  continuity  in  Old  and  New 
Testaments,  491-493;  grows  like  an  or¬ 
ganism,  493. 

Knowledge,  absolute,  48  f.,  157;  finite  not 
self-originating,  depends  on  revelation, 
48  f . ;  begins  as  knowledge  of  individuals, 
74,  76  f.,  184,  187;  intellectual  equivalent 
of  reality,  208,  219  f.,  256-260;  archetypal 
in  God.  See  Archetypal. 

Knowledge  of  God,  three  factors,  5,  61; 
and  belief,  97-99 ;  progressive,  66-68 ; 
positive  but  inadequate,  80,  95  f.,  157-159, 
181  f.,  216-219  ;  progressiveness  analogous 
with  physical  science,  16,  39,  139,  208; 
processes  analogous,  58,  59-61,  135  f., 
148  f. ;  in  what  sense  negative,  216-218 ; 
three  stages,  354,  429. 

Koran,  lack  of  roots  in  history,  461. 

Kuenen,  persistence  of  religious  belief,  351. 

36 


L. 

Lange,  F.  A.,  scientific  and  ethical  material¬ 
ism,  223 ;  test  of  materialism,  410 ;  poverty 
of  materialism  as  to  culture,  416. 

Lanier,  Sidney,  118,  290. 

Laplace,  could  not  find  God  with  his  tele¬ 
scope,  204;  final  causes,  325. 

Law,  of  ethics  and  physics,  267,  498,  532  f., 
535 ;  distinguished  from  factual  uniform 
sequences,  also  called  laws,  316-318,  475, 
479  f.,  481  f.,  505  f. ;  force  surreptitiously 
ascribed  to,  318;  nature  orderly  under, 
267-272 ;  objection,  order  and  law  prove 
the  absence  of  will,  316-319 ;  unity  of,  in 
the  spiritual  and  physical  systems,  532- 
546;  law  of  reason  extends  to  nature,  not 
the  sequences  of  nature  to  reason,  289  f., 
484  f.,  505  f.,  535;  exemplified  in  the  law 
of  causation,  534-541 ;  in  the  law  of  re¬ 
ception  and  production,  541-546  ;  the  law 
of  the  higher  descending  to  the  lower  to 
lift  it  up,  539  f. ;  law  and  miracles,  497- 
502,  of  least  action,  321. 

Le  Conte,  Prof.,  objective  reality  of  physical 
and  spiritual,  399. 

Lenormant,  redemption  in  ethnic  religions, 
384  f. 

Lessing,  rationalism,  129. 

Lewes,  attitude  of  this  age  as  to  skepticism, 
353. 

Life,  pagan  conception  of,  brought  back  by 
atheism,  407. 

Light  which  lighteth  every  man,  45,  366, 
367,  377,  516  f.,  520  f.,530  f.;  life  and 
love  from  Christ,  517  f. 

Like  known  only  by  like,  82  f.,  159  f.,  186, 
257. 

Lilly,  W.  S.,  truth  known  by  feeling,  88 ; 
mediaeval  verse,  126  f. 

Lily  and  sparrow,  cosmic  forces  serving  or¬ 
ganic  life,  281-283,  551  f. 

Logical  notions  and  processes  mistaken  for 
concrete  beings,  actions,  and  relations, 
62  f.,  128,  145,  174,  186-188,  198  f.,  215  f., 
243,  259  f.,  373  f. 

Lotze,  finite  personality,  337 ;  analogy  of 
knowledge  of  God  and  of  the  outward 
world,  398. 

Love,  relation  to  intelligence,  117-119  ;  to 
development  and  power,  126,  536  f. ;  not 
contradictory  to  the  law  of  the  survival 
of  the  fittest,  535;  kind  of  service  re¬ 
quired,  535  f.,  538;  fundamental  law  of 
the  universe  revealed  in  God  in  Christ, 
539  f. 

Lucretius,  fear  generates  the  gods,  42; 
atoms,  191,  333;  anthropomorphism,  434. 


562 


INDEX. 


Luthardt,  94. 

Luther  and  rationalism,  139,  458  f. 

M. 

Malebranche,  positive  knowledge  of  God, 
217. 

Man,  normally  in  union  with  God,  81,  105, 
516-518,  541-546  ;  is  supernatural  in  the 
likeness  of  God  and  therefore  knows  him, 
83-86,  91;  participates  in  nature  and  the 
supernatural,  and  “at  home”  in  each,  85, 
102,  137,  200  f.,  260,  288-292,  341,  474  f. ; 
participates  in  universal  reason,  45-47, 
79-81,  86,  368,  376  f.,  516  f.,  520  f.,  530; 
the  mirror  of  the  universe,  341 ;  revealed 
to  himself  in  knowing  God,  72,  95,  126, 
198,  225,  355,  515,  523 ;  greatness  of  the 
physical  shows  his  littleness,  and  of  the 
spiritual  system  his  greatness,  551 ;  natural 
and  spiritual  man,  103  f. ;  highest  product 
of  evolution,  286,  343-345;  his  personality 
a  proof  of  the  existence  of  God,  341-345 ; 
our  Father  Man,  420  f. 

Mansel,  159,  175,  179  f. 

Martineau,  James,  phvsico-theological  argu¬ 
ment,  319. 

Materialism,  201-206;  definition,  169,  201; 
scientific  and  ethical,  223  f. ;  subjective 
and  objective  contradictory,  205  f.;  is  un¬ 
scientific,  253  ;  poverty  as  to  culture,  416. 

Matter  and  spirit,  synthesis  of,  in  God,  the 
All-conditioning,  220  f.,  288  f. 

Maudsley,  Dr.,  insane  infant,  104. 

Maxwell,  Clerk,  atoms  and  molecules  dis¬ 
close  a  power  transcending  the  universe, 
203,  238. 

Mead,  E.  D.,  germs  of  rationalism  in  Luther, 
139. 

Mechanism,  the  universe  as,  distinguished 
from  the  immanence  of  God,  317  ;  mate¬ 
rialism  makes  it  finite  with  perpetual  self¬ 
generating  motion,  237,  268  f. 

Mediaeval  Christian  verse,  more  joyous  than 
the  ancient  pagan,  126  f. 

Messianic  prophecy,  142,  452  f.,  490  f. 

Meyer,  Wilhelm,  the  mystery  of  the  uni¬ 
verse,  151;  humanity  worship,  421. 

Mill,  J.  S.,  immorality  of  Hamilton’s  ag¬ 
nosticism,  179;  positive  knowledge  of  the 
absolute,  216,  217;  law  of  simplest  and 
fewest  assumptions,  255;  God’s  will  as 
almighty  caprice,  316  f. ;  physico-theolog- 
ical  argument  is  induction,  not  analogy, 
332  f . ;  mind  a  series  of  sensations,  342 ; 
awakening  of  his  religious  susceptibilities, 
351 ;  religion  without  a  divinity,  418; 
miracles  possible  if  God  exists,  476  f. 

Miller,  Hugh,  fear  of  a  corpse,  392. 


Milton,  115,  371,  513. 

Mind,  not  a  series  of  sensations,  213,  246, 
342,  510 ;  not  accounted  for  by  molecular 
motion,  343  f.,  508-513  ;  demanded  by  evo¬ 
lution,  343  f.,  506  f.  ;  mind-stuff,  169,  513. 

Miracles,  474-504  ;  objection  that  they  are 
not  continued,  70  f. ;  possibility  involved 
in  redemption,  445  f. ;  essential  and  inci¬ 
dental,  445  f.,  494  f.,  514  ;  threefold  sig¬ 
nificance,  446;  definition,  474-476,  478  f. ; 
possibility,  as  consistent  with  the  contin¬ 
uity  of  nature,  476-486,  514;  epochal  in  the 
spiritual  system  and  the  physical,  486-497, 
514,  539;  incidental  miracles  in  epochs, 
494;  miracles  and  law,  497-502;  denial  of 
their  possibility  involves  denial  of  God, 
502-504  ;  free  will  essentially  miracle- 
working,  474,  475  f.,  478  f. ;  the  law  rather 
than  the  exception,  482;  probable,  485  f., 
499-501  ;  current  in  the  ocean,  486 ;  not 
isolated,  but  in  the  archetypal  plan,  487- 
497,  507  ;  evidential  value,  446,  496 ; 
arouse  attention,  446,  497 ;  objection  that 
they  are  contrary  to  universal  experience, 
494^,  499-501. 

Mivart,  St.  John,  present  obligation  of  the 
censure  on  Galileo,  531. 

Molecular  action  of  the  brain  manifests  the 
supernatural  in  man,  508-513. 

Monism,  definition  and  classification,  167- 
169;  pantheistic,  168,  182-201;  material¬ 
istic,  168  f.,  201-206;  agreement  with  the¬ 
ism,  163,  169,  222-224. 

Monotheism  and  theism,  207 ;  education  of 
Israel  to,  490  f. 

Moral  ideas,  universal,  44  f. ;  and  religion, 
22-24,  44  f.,  524;  incompatible  with  pan¬ 
theism,  193-198 ;  constitution  of  man,  God 
revealed  in,  369,  375-377,  384  f. 

More,  Hannah,  392;  Henry,  526. 

Mosaism,  the  absolute  recognized  in  its 
moral  law,  390. 

Moses,  vision  of  God’s  glory,  69  f. 

Motion,  perpetual  and  self-generating,  in¬ 
volved  in  the  merely  mechanical  concep¬ 
tion  of  the  universe,  237,  268  f. 

Mozlev,  Canon,  survival  of  the  fittest,  319. 

Muller,  F.  Max,  ethnic  religions,  27  f.,  29; 
idea  of  the  infinite  not  negative,  217 ;  each 
god  worshiped  as  supreme,  359 ;  belief 
in  revelation,  363 ;  sense  of  the  mysterious, 
378,  381 ;  fetichism,  426  f. 

Muller,  Julius,  God  in  the  background  of 
self-consciousness,  393. 

Must  be  and  ought  to  be,  laws  of,  535. 

Mystery,  205,  381  ;  God  the  greatest  of  all 
and  the  solution  of  all,  188 ;  the  mystery 
behind  all  phenomena  is  known  as  a  being, 
151,  203-205  ;  lies  along  the  line  of  all  ac- 


INDEX. 


tion  of  the  absolute  in  the  finite,  212 ;  dis¬ 
closed  by  science,  205,  239  f.,  269-272, 
292,  331,  481  f . ;  in  everything  the  finger¬ 
print  of  the  hand  that  made  it,  551;  sense 
of,  a  feeling  leading  to  God,  381. 

Mysticism,  122-127 ;  its  truth  and  its  error, 
132  f. ;  pantheistic,  199. 

Myths,  ethnic,  contrasted  with  theophanies 
of  the  Old  Testament,  69 ;  conditions  of 
their  growth,  26  f . ;  extravagant  theories 
of,  69,  362. 

N. 

Natural  man  and  spiritual,  103-105. 

Natural  selection  and  final  causes,  322  f. 

Natural  theology,  need  of  restatement,  1-11 ; 
defects,  154. 

Natural  and  revealed  religion,  distinction  no 
longer  available,  448 ;  the  real  distinction, 
449-451. 

Nature,  symbolic,  180  f.,  256-266,  293, 
533  f. ;  orderly  under  law,  267-272,  316- 
318,  475,  479  f.,  481  f.,  506,  535;  realizing 
ideals,  272-281;  subserving  uses,  281-292; 
itself  revealed  in  revealing  God,  293; 
false  and  true  idea  of,  480-484. 

Nature  and  the  supernatural,  line  of  demar- 
kation  between,  17,  50,  83-86,  108,  253- 
255,  341,  381  f.,  474-476;  the  natural  can¬ 
not  know  the  supernatural,  82-84,  103  f., 
106-109;  not  in  antagonism,  85  f.,  87  f., 
138,  287-292,  484-486  ;  man  at  home  in 
both,  92,  100,  108,  137  f.,  200,  260,  290; 
synthesis  in  God  the  all-conditioning,  220  f., 
288  f. ;  correspondence  recognized  in  hu¬ 
man  action  and  language,  264  f . ;  unity  of, 
287-292. 

Nature-myths,  69,  362. 

Nature-worship,  false  theory  that  it  preceded 
spirit-worship,  359-362. 

Necessity  and  freedom,  origin  of  knowledge 
of,  247-249;  universe  grounded  in  free¬ 
dom,  375  f. ;  reconciliation  of  freedom  and 
dependence  through  belief  in  God,  23  f., 
25,  207,  376,  403-405. 

Newcomb,  Prof.,  274. 

Newman,  F.  W.,  a  book-revelation  impos¬ 
sible,  461. 

Newton  robbed  the  heavens  of  their  gods, 
317. 

Niebuhr,  225. 

Nihilists,  belief  in  God  their  greatest  obsta¬ 
cle,  166,  430. 

Nirvana  of  the  intellect,  176. 

Noir£,  326,  335. 

Non-theistic  theories.  See  Atheism. 

Normal  condition  of  man,  in  union  with 
God,  81,  542. 


563 

Norwich,  Bishop  of,  Bible  without  theology, 
132. 

Noumenon  and  phenomenon,  80,  533. 


o. 

One,  the  absolute,  coexistence  with  the 
many,  186,  192  f. ;  and  all,  182  f. 

Ontological  argument,  its  significance,  164  f. ; 
pantheism,  168;  knowledge  is  ontological 
in  its  beginning,  77,  165,  184. 

Order  of  the  universe,  rational  and  moral, 
498;  under  law  reveals  God,  267-272;  ob¬ 
jection  that  order  and  law  prove  the  ab¬ 
sence  of  will,  316-319. 

Origin  and  development,  of  belief  in  God, 
16-20,  38-47,  63  f.,  207  f.,  346-364;  Spen¬ 
cer’s  theorj',  18,  21  f.,  362;  in  man’s  nor¬ 
mal  development  he  finds  God,  354  ;  of 
the  idea  of  spirit,  17  f.,  21  f.,  64  f.,  160, 
360  f. 

P. 

Paganism,  conception  of  life  renewed  by 
modern  atheism,  407,  422;  Christianity  a 
veneering  of,  425,  521  f. 

Pain  and  suffering,  objection  founded,  297, 
299-311,  498  f. 

Palmer,  Courtlandt,  supposed  argument  for 
atheism,  166  f. 

Pantheism,  definition  and  classification, 
168  f.,  182-184,  198  f. ;  rests  on  no  rea¬ 
sonable  grounds,  184-188;  involves  con¬ 
tradictions,  188-190  ;  cannot  solve  the 
necessary  problems  of  reason,  190-193; 
incompatible  with  free  will,  moral  respon¬ 
sibility,  and  religion,  193-198  ;  agreement 
with  theism,  163,  169,  222  f . ;  calls  atten¬ 
tion  to  neglected  aspects  of  truth,  199- 
201;  false  suspicions  of,  and  criterion,  200, 
211  f. ;  truths  misconceived  as  pantheistic 
better  set  forth  in  theism,  199-201,  211  f., 
224-229;  denies  the  real  being  of  finite 
things  and  persons,  168,  225 ;  implies  the 
evolving  of  the  absolute  into  the  imper¬ 
fect,  or  of  the  imperfect  into  the  absolute, 
189 ;  logically  issues  in  complete  agnosti¬ 
cism,  190;  theistic  misconceptions  leading 
to  pantheism,  211  f;  no  “Christian  pan¬ 
theism,”  212;  man  creates  God,  227;  its 
fascination,  197. 

Parker,  Theodore,  the  ideal  Christ  implies 
the  historical,  441,  473. 

Particular,  the,  the  universal  revealed  in, 
367  f. 

Paul,  the  natural  man  and  the  spiritual,  103. 

Peirce,  Prof.  Benj.,  258,  262,  280,  367. 


564 


INDEX. 


Perfect,  the,  rational  norm  of,  reveals  God, 
369-371  ;  sentiments  responsive  to,  reveal 
God,  88,  385-387,  389  f.,  412. 

Persistence  of  force  is  persistent  manifesta¬ 
tion  of  the  absolute  Being,  154  f. 

Personality,  false  ideas  of,  212-216,  246, 
334-339,  342 ;  potential  unconditionedness, 
213  f.,  310  f.;  finiteness  not  its  essence, 
215  f.,  335-337 ;  its  essential  attributes 
may  be  attributes  of  the  absolute,  214, 
337;  of  man  proves  the  personality  of 
God,  341-345. 

Personality  of  God,  essential  in  the  idea  of 
religion,  18,  82-86,  167 ;  objection  that, 
not  predicable  of  the  absolute  springs  from 
false  idea  of  the  absolute,  210  f.,  213;  from 
false  idea  of  the  God  of  theism,  211  f. ; 
from  false  ideas  of  personality,  212-216, 
334-337;  involves  denying  the  predication 
of  any  attribute,  174-176,  246  f.  ;  error 
that  God  is  spirit,  not  personal,  215  f., 
334-339 ;  revealed  in  the  constitution  and 
course  of  nature,  251-341;  in  man,  341- 
442. 

Pessimism,  103,  106-108,  312  f.,  387,  403, 
416  f.,  462  f.,  527. 

Pfleiderer,  13,  42  f.,  132  f.,  215,  335,  358, 
361,  390. 

Phenomenalism,  Comte’s,  170  f.,  263  f. 

Phenomenon,  not  separated  from  the  being 
but  filled  with  it,  77,  79,  80;  and  noume- 
non,  80,  533. 

Philo,  43  f. 

Philosophy,  Prof.  Green’s  definition,  251; 
taken  up  into  Christianity,  524-526  ; 
Paul’s  conception  of  this,  525;  without 
God,  issues  in  mere  subjectivity,  526. 

Philosophy  of  history,  depends  on  theism, 
423-433;  and  on  Christianity,  526-529. 

Physical  system,  God  revealed  in,  55;  re¬ 
vealed  as  power  or  cause,  233-250 ;  as  the 
personal  God,  251-340;  subservient  to  the 
spiritual,  285-292,  306-311  ;  correspond¬ 
ence  and  interaction  with  the  spiritual, 
100,  138,  287-292,  484-486  ;  unity  and 
continuity  of  the  physical  and  spiritual, 
85  f.,  287-292,  505-515;  laws  of  the  spirit¬ 
ual  system  regulative  in  the  physical,  not 
sequences  of  the  physical  in  the  spiritual, 
289  f.,  505  f.,  532-546. 

Physico-theological  argument,  251-340. 

Physicus,  169,  245  f.,  403  f.,  527. 

Physiology  requires  recognition  of  the  super¬ 
natural  in  man,  508-513. 

Pietism,  140,  141,  145. 

Pindar,  383. 

Plato,  the  soul  an  oracle,  87,  88 ;  on  prajrer, 
43;  God  geometrizes,  369;  ideas,  78,  192, 
259,  437  f. ;  education,  355. 


Platonism,  New,  and  Christianity,  192. 

Plutarch,  universality  of  religion,  346  ;  on 
Plato’s  ideas,  192. 

Poetry  reveals  reality  as  really  as  science, 
369-371. 

Political  progress,  influence  of  Christianity, 
430-432. 

Polytheism,  not  atheism,  167,  207  f. ;  agree¬ 
ment  with  and  preparation  for  monothe¬ 
ism,  28,  358  f.,  518  f. ;  alleged  religion  of 
Israel,  489  f. 

Positivism,  Comte’s,  left  behind  by  science, 
161  f.,  171,  222;  logical  result  of  denying 
God,  161;  denies  the  necessity  of  forming 
a  theory  of  the  universe,  170,  222;  reason 
declares  it,  171;  implies  that  knowledge  is 
impossible,  170  f.  ;  Alice  in  “Through 
the  Looking-glass,’’  171  f. ;  agreement  with 
theism,  222;  religion  of,  22,  222,  419-421, 
522-524. 

Postulates  of  science,  as  to  the  sum  of  all 
force,  implies  that  the  absolute  is  the 
transcendent  cause,  235  f. ;  as  to  reason¬ 
ableness  of  the  universe,  implies  that  the 
absolute  is  reason,  236,  258,  298;  reason 
in  harmony  with  man’s,  universal,  260- 
263,  436-439 ;  postulates  of  science  rest  on 
theism,  372-375,  517,  518  f. 

Practical  knowledge  and  speculative,  115, 
117-119. 

Practical  power  of  faith  in  God,  402-423. 

Preaching,  a  testifying  or  prophesying,  41  f., 
451;  necessity,  455. 

Priests,  religion  an  invention  of,  423. 

Production  dependent  on  reception,  a  uni¬ 
versal  law,  105  f.,  541-546. 

Progress,  belief  in,  due  to  Christianity, 

430  f.,  451-454;  lacking  in  ethnic  reli¬ 
gions,  452  f. ;  of  Christ’s  kingdom  like  an 
organic  growth,  493;  the  spiritual  pre¬ 
cedes  and  quickens  the  physical  progress, 

431  ;  man’s  progress  in  estimating  and 
trusting  spiritual  power  above  physical 
force,  385  f.,  537. 

Progressiveness  of  God’s  revelation  and  of 
man’s  knowledge  of  God  through  it,  66- 
69,  137-139,  207-209,  211,  299  f.,  455  f., 
482,  506-508 ;  analogy  to  the  progress  of 
physical  science,  16,  39,  66  f.,  139,  208, 
363  ;  three  stages,  137  f.,  354,  429 ;  Comte’s 
three  stages,  426-429;  various  conflicting 
theories,  428  f. ;  is  a  discipline  and  educa¬ 
tion,  208  f. 

Proof,  indirect,  251-253. 

Prophecy,  testifying  of  God  as  known  in  ex¬ 
perience,  41  f.,  451 ;  not  merely  prediction, 
452-454;  connection  with  and  subordina¬ 
tion  to  historical  revelation,  451-454;  evi¬ 
dential  value  as  prediction,  452  f.  ;  an 


INDEX. 


565 


atmosphere  of  promise  and  progress,  dis¬ 
tinguished  from  the  assumed  completeness 
and  fixedness  of  ethnic  religions,  452  f.; 
distinguished  from  the  mantic  fury  of  eth¬ 
nic  inspiration,  454  f. ;  prophetic  or  private 
revelation,  and  historical  or  public,  56, 121, 
451-454. 

Propitiation  and  expiation,  disclose  con¬ 
sciousness  of  God  as  moral  lawgiver, 
384  f. 

Protestantism,  lapse  into  dogmatism  and 
rationalism,  128  f. ;  not  its  essential  ten¬ 
dency,  139  f. ;  political  tendencies,  139; 
this  lapse  in  England,  America  and  Ger¬ 
many,  140  f. ;  the  reaction,  141-144;  its 
continuance  in  current  thought,  143-149. 

Q. 

Quarles,  231. 

Quatrefages,  universal^  of  religion,  347, 
348. 

Quietism,  123. 

Quinet,  13,  102,  369. 

R. 

Rae,  on  fetichism,  427. 

Rational  constitution  of  man,  God  revealed 
in,  45-47,  75-82,  86  f.,  366-375. 

Rationalism,  what  it  is,  127  f.,  469;  lapse  of 
Protestantism  into  it,  128  f.,  140  f. ;  rela¬ 
tion  to  dogmatism,  127-129;  the  reaction, 
141-144;  Schleiermacher’s  influence,  141, 
145;  influence  of  Strauss,  127  f.,  141-143; 
Lessing,  129  ;  present  rationalistic  tenden¬ 
cies,  145  f. ;  affirms  the  ideal  Christ  with¬ 
out  the  historical,  127  f.,  146,  469-473. 

Ravaisson,  on  the  absolute,  162. 

Rayleigh,  Lord,  contradictions  and  difficul¬ 
ties  in  physical  science,  292. 

Realism,  Natural,  of  physical  science,  76  ; 
Rational,  48  f.,  59  f.,  75-82,  185,  193,  227, 
256-266,  263;  the  true  basis  of  physical 
science,  76,  78,  193;  contradicted  by  pan¬ 
theism,  185;  and  idealism  united,  75-82, 
193;  materialistic,  66  f.,  100,  413-417. 

Realm  of  ends,  the  personal  and  spiritual, 
285,  501. 

Reason,  in  what  sense  used,  7 ;  its  funda¬ 
mental  ideas  the  forms  of  reality,  76,  78- 
80 ;  reason-sense,  75,  81 ;  unaided,  80  f., 
91,  93,  122;  human,  like  the  universal 
reason  and  participates  in  its  light,  44, 
86  f.,  366,  372  f.,  438  f.,  517  f . ;  postulate 
of  all  ethics,  44;  postulate  of  all  scientific 
knowledge,  45-47,  155,  220,  227  f.,  235  f., 


260-264,  366-368,  436-439  ;  shown  in 
scientific  prevision,  261;  in  scientific  dis¬ 
covery,  261  ;  in  invention,  261  f.  ;  in 
mathematics,  262  ;  potential  uncondition¬ 
edness,  214. 

Reason  absolute,  is  God,  7  f.,  79  f. ;  ener¬ 
gizing  in  the  universe  and  revealed  in  it, 
79,  208,  317  f.,  479  f. ;  always  at  the  goal, 
incompatible  with  suffering,  498 ;  concep¬ 
tion  of  impersonal  and  unconscious  reason 
at  the  ground  of  the  universe,  215,  334- 
339. 

Reasonableness,  of  the  universe,  a  postulate 
of  science,  79,  236,  256  f.,  258  ;  of  the 
faith  of  unlettered  believers  in  God,  399- 
401. 

Reception  precedes  production,  a  universal 
law  of  the  finite,  105  f.,  541-546. 

Reconciliation,  of  consciousness  of  freedom 
and  of  necessity  through  faith  in  God,  25, 
195  f.,  207,  376,  403;  of  the  physical  and 
spiritual,  in  man,  84-86,  474  f. ;  also  in 
correspondence  and  subordination,  484- 
486 ;  not  physical  laws  over  the  spiritual, 
but  spiritual  laws  over  the  physical,  289  f., 
484  f.,  505  f.,  533;  of  man  and  his  en¬ 
vironment,  287-292;  402-405,  493;  of  the 
human  and  divine  in  Christ,  516-518, 
543  f. 

Redemption  from  sin,  traces  of  the  idea  in 
ethnic  religions,  384  f.  ;  definition,  and 
what  it  includes,  444;  is  historical,  444  f. ; 
involves  the  miraculous,  445  f. ;  is  a  rev¬ 
elation  of  God,  446-451;  of  God  himself 
in  historical  action,  not  of  truths  formu¬ 
lated  in  words,  57  f.,  447 ;  distinct  from 
and  transcends  all  other  revelations,  448- 
451;  in  the  Old  Testament,  444  f.,  445  f., 
452  f.,  489-494,  518;  God  seeks  man  be¬ 
fore  man  seeks  God,  470. 

Relation,  known  as  objective  reality,  77  f. 

Relativity  of  knowledge,  160. 

Religion,  15-29;  and  morals,  22-24,  44  f., 
375-377  ;  presupposes  communion  with 
God,  18,  39-44,  362  ;  emergence  of  man 
from  the  life  of  nature  to  the  knowleage  of 
God,  103-105  ;  origin  and  development, 
16-20,  38-47,  63  f.,  207  f.,  345-364;  arises 
in  man’s  normal  development,  353-364; 
Spencer’s  theory,  18,  21,  362  ;  various 
theories,  358-363;  is  generic,  44  f.,  345- 
347;  spontaneous,  347  f.  ;  powerful,  348; 
persistent,  348-351 ;  rooted  in  man’s  entire 
constitution  as  personal,  27,  89,  353-402 ; 
acceptable  in  man’s  highest  moral  feeling, 
repugnant  in  his  lowest,  408 ;  can  never 
cease,  365,  381 ;  proposed  substitutes  with¬ 
out  a  divinity,  20-27,  418-423,  522-526; 
practical  efficacy  which  may  be  demanded 


566 


INDEX. 


of  it,  405 ;  all  claim  a  revelation  of  the  di¬ 
vinity,  363,  456. 

Renan,  109,  408 ;  perfume  of  an  empty  vase, 
404 ;  test  of  a  miracle,  496 ;  transcendence 
of  Jesus,  532. 

Reuss,  effect  of  criticism,  when  isolated, 
130  f. 

Revelation,  presupposed  in  all  knowledge 
by  experience,  3,  48  f.,  80  f.,  93,  122, 
363  f . ;  what  the  revelation  is,  48-57 ;  what 
God  reveals  is  himself  as  distinguished 
from  doctrines,  4,  57  f.,  148  f.,  446-451; 
reaction  of  the  mind  in  receiving  it,  59- 
73;  is  by  historical  action  of  God,  71  f., 
446-451,  530-532;  begins  with  human  sin, 
444  f.,  449 ;  progressive  (see  Progressive¬ 
ness);  through  a  human  medium,  in  its 
reception  and  communication,  454-456; 
not  an  end  in  itself,  456  f. ;  unity  and 
continuity  of,  505-546  ;  assumed  in  all 
religions,  363,  456 ;  analogous  to  the  reve¬ 
lation  of  the  outward  world,  48  f.,  377, 
398;  subjective  verified  by  objective,  5, 
121;  public  or  historical,  private  or  pro¬ 
phetic,  56,  121,  451-454;  limit  of  revela¬ 
tion  by  words,  71,  362-364,  446-448. 

Reymond,  Du  Bois,  the  idea  of  force  anthro¬ 
pomorphic,  436  f. 

Richter,  God’s  immanence  in  nature,  293. 

Right,  the  idea  of,  80,  368  f.,  376;  motives 
and  emotions  pertaining  to,  88,  384  f., 
389  f.;  practical  influence  dependent  on 
knowledge  of  God,  407-410. 

Robertson,  F.  W.,  principle  on  which  he 
taught,  136. 

Robespierre,  scenic  restoration  of  the  Su¬ 
preme  Being,  350. 

Rothe,  religion  is  communion  with  God,  18  ; 
miracles  and  prophecy  constitutive  ele¬ 
ments  of  revelation,  445 ;  necessity  of 
written  record  of  the  revelation,  457  ;  self- 
evidencing  power  of  the  Bible,  466 ;  Chris¬ 
tianity  the  most  mutable  of  all  things, 
531.  * 

Rousseau,  Savoyard  vicar,  325 ;  impossibil¬ 
ity  of  a  book-revelation,  461. 

Royce,  Prof.,  210,  498. 

Ruckert,  397. 

Ruge,  humanitarian  religion,  421. 

s. 

Sacrifice,  human,  28,  125,  489  f.,  491 ;  Feuer¬ 
bach,  that  it  is  of  the  essence  of  religion, 
125,  198;  the  true  Christian  self-sacrifice, 
126;  and  penance,  disclose  consciousness 
of  God  as  lawgiver,  384. 

Schelling,  atheism  of  consciousness,  89  ; 


epochs  in  evolution,  184;  religion  grow¬ 
ing  wild,  358. 

Schenckel,  God  revealed  in  consciousness, 
384. 

Schiller,  the  oracle  within,  130 ;  will-power 
guided  by  reason,  306  ;  beauty  reveals 
truth,  370;  feeling  before  definite  knowl¬ 
edge,  379  f. 

Schleiermacher,  religion  the  sense  of  de¬ 
pendence,  25,  391,  394  ;  influence  in  the 
reaction  against  rationalism,  141,  145;  his 
philosophy  opposed  to  his  religion,  209. 

Schweitzer,  the  absolute  Spirit,  65. 

Science,  none  formulated  in  nature,  58,  470; 
materialistic,  misses  the  deepest  reality, 
100,  292,  381-384;  physical,  its  progres¬ 
siveness  analogous  to  that  of  theism,  16, 
39,  66  f.,  139,  208,  363;  its  processes  also 
analogous,  58,  59-61,  135  f.,  148,  458, 
470 ;  consists  in  finding  rational  thought 
in  nature,  257  f.,  260  f. ;  its  contradictions 
and  insuperable  difficulties  without  God, 
19,  205,  237-240,  269-271,  292,  331,  381, 
481  f.  ;  postulates  universal  reason  like 
man’s,  46  f.,  75-82.  366,  393,  438  f. ;  its 
immense  assumptions,  372  f.  ;  postulates 
ideas  under  all  which  is  observed,  78-81, 
256-266,  437  f.;  primitive  impulse  to  in¬ 
vestigation,  171,  382  f. ;  its  anthropomor¬ 
phism,  436-439  ;  assumes  that  the  uni¬ 
verse  is  intelligible,  79,  236,  256  f.,  258, 
533 ;  enthusiasm  for,  a  substitute  for  reli¬ 
gion,  25  f.,  46  f.,  524. 

Scientific  motives  and  emotions  responsive 
to  God,  382-384. 

Scott,  Sir  W.,  392. 

Seeley,  J.  R.,  scientific  enthusiasm  a  substi¬ 
tute  for  religion,  25  f.,  46,  524. 

Selection,  natural,  319,  321,  322,  326 ;  evi¬ 
dence  of  mind  in  nature,  275 ;  and  man’s, 
315. 

Self,  defined  as  a  series  of  sensations,  213, 
342  ;  potential  unconditionedness,  214, 
310,  f. 

Self-consciousness,  God  in  the  background 
of,  47,  72  f.,  151,  393  f . ;  pantheistic  con¬ 
ception  of  it,  73. 

Self-sufficiency,  105,  542. 

Seneca,  43,  356. 

Sense  does  not  give  the  highest  certainty,  499. 

Sense-perception  a  revelation,  48  f.,  59  f. ; 
and  self-perception  in  the  same  act,  76; 
and  rational  intuition,  76-80. 

Sequence,  uniform,  and  laws,  475,  479  f., 
483  f.,  500,  506. 

Series,  infinite,  155,  237. 

Service,  Christian  law  of,  536  f. 

Shadows,  not  the  origin  of  the  idea  of  spirit, 
21  f.,  360  f. 


INDEX. 


567 


Shechinah,  the,  468. 

Shelley,  human  consciousness  of  the  divine, 
250. 

Shields,  Prof.,  theories  of  the  stages  of 
man’s  historical  development,  428. 

Sicard,  Abbe,  and  Massieu,  357. 

Sidgwick,  Prof.,  indirect  proof,  252  ;  no 
ethics  without  God,  409. 

Signs,  natural,  revelation  through,  52. 

Sin,  separates  from  God,  104-109,  444  f., 
449  f.,  542,  543  f . ;  repudiates  dependence 
on  God,  105  ;  consciousness  of,  not  en¬ 
nobling,  124  f. ;  consciousness  of  God  in 
the  consciousness  of  sin,  124  f.,  384  f.;  pos¬ 
sibility  of,  involved  in  finite  free  agency, 
297,  498;  God  meets  it  with  law  and  re¬ 
demption,  498  f. ;  its  deepest  significance, 
542  f. 

Skepticism,  universal,  involved  in  denying 
the  absolute  Being,  161  f. ;  insists  on  per¬ 
petual  uncertainty  and  indifference,  118  f. 

Smith,  R.,  Bible  a  book  of  religious  ex¬ 
perience,  459. 

Socrates,  43,  365. 

Speculative  inquiry  divorced  from  the  prac¬ 
tical,  115-119. 

Spencer,  H.,  theory  of  religion,  18,  21,  362; 
existence  of  the  absolute  Being  a  neces¬ 
sary  postulate,  151;  implied  in  the  per¬ 
sistence  of  force,  155 ;  knowledge  of  the 
absolute  positive,  177,  240;  accepts  the- 
istic  positions  and  methods,  177,  180  f., 
240  ;  God  unknowable  because  included  in 
no  class,  215  f. ;  consciousness  of  cause  in¬ 
eradicable,  244;  on  symbols,  533  f.;  lan¬ 
guage  implying  final  cause,  321 ;  definition 
of  the  ego,  342 ;  energy  in  the  physical 
system  the  same  as  in  consciousness,  181, 
344;  religion  of  agnosticism,  21,  419  f., 
522;  uniformity  reveals  the  Absolute,  and 
not  merely  the  extraordinary,  424 ;  belief 
in  God  anthropomorphic,  433  f. ;  caricature 
of  theism,  435 ;  definition  of  life,  321,  437 ; 
rude  people  incapable  of  receiving  the 
ideas  of  a  higher  civilization,  490 ;  error 
of  his  ethics,  537  f. ;  misrepresentation  of 
Christianity,  550;  type  of  evolution  is  the 
growth  of  an  organism,  279. 

Spinoza,  his  pantheism,  182-184;  like  known 
only  by  like,  186 ;  definition  of  freedom, 
193  f. ;  spiritual  automata,  194;  begs  the 
question,  185  f.;  sub  specie  seternitatis, 
231;  thought  predicated  of  the  absolute 
has  no  likeness  to  human  intelligence,  184, 
336 ;  contradictions,  189  f . 

Spirit,  origin  of  the  idea,  17  f.,  21  f.,  64  f., 
160,  360  f . ;  acting  on  spirit,  52  f . 

Spirit  absolute,  the  two  essential  elements  in 
the  idea  of  a  divinity,  17  f.,  378,  389  f.; 


not  impersonal  and  unconscious,  215,  234- 
339;  feelings  responsive  to  God  as,  17, 
378-381,  389  f. 

Spirit,  of  God,'  awakening  the  spiritual  in 
man,  114  f. ;  witness  of,  106,  119  f ., 
468  f. 

Spiritual,  the,  in  it  the  deepest  reality  and  the 
unity  of  knowledge,  99-102;  submerged 
in  the  natural,  103-105 ;  capacities  in  in¬ 
sensibility,  dormant  not  extinct,  109-114; 
system,  its  greatness  reveals  the  greatness 
of  man,  551.  See  Environment,  and 
Physical  System. 

Spontaneity  of  religious  faith,  347,  350-353 ; 
spontaneous  belief  in  God  a  reasonable 
ground  of  religious  service,  399-402;  to 
be  held  to  amid  intellectual  perplexities, 
400  f. 

Stael,  Madame  de,  348. 

Stanley,  Dean,  vigor  and  vitality  of  the 
Bible,  531. 

Stephen,  Leslie,  depreciation  of  reason  by 
theologians,  91. 

Stephen,  Sir  James,  objection  that  the  theist 
claims  faculties  which  others  have  not, 
110;  religion  not  necessary,  406. 

Stewart,  Balfour,  waste  in  nature,  485. 

Stewart,  Dugald,  the  immanence  of  God  in 
nature,  140  f. 

Stoics,  earlier  and  later,  356. 

Strauss,  his  rationalism,  127;  influence  of 
his  life  of  Jesus,  141-143;  discovery  of  law 
dethrones  God,  317 ;  science  is  man’s  re¬ 
membrance  of  what  himself  ordered  as  the 
unconscious  absolute,  336 ;  logical  issue  of 
denying  the  possibility  of  miracles,  503. 

Strength,  physical,  intellectual,  spiritual, 
progress  measured  by  dependence  on, 
385  f.,  537. 

Subjective,  transition  from,  to  objective,  75- 
80  ;  revelation  verified  by  objective,  5, 
121. 

Substance,  cannot  account  for  the  universe, 
191,201,  224,  226  f.,  237 ;  three  in  one,  193, 
233  f. 

Suffering,  objection  to  theism,  297-316;  its 
significance  revealed  by  Christ,  298,  310  f. 

Suffocation,  intellectual,  caused  by  atheism, 
383. 

Sumner,  C.,  charged  with  sentimental  pol¬ 
itics,  415. 

Supernatural  and  natural,  line  of  demarka- 
tion  between,  50,  83-86,  253-255,  341, 
474-476 ;  ignorance  of  the  supernatural, 
strange  and  abnormal,  81  ;  the  natural 
cannot  know  it,  82  f. ;  antagonism  disap¬ 
pears,  85  f.,  288  f.,  289-292;  man  at  home 
in  both,  134-137,  200,  260,  290;  sense  of 
supernatural,  responsive  to  spiritual  en- 


568 


INDEX. 


vironment,  391-393;  origin  of  the  idea, 
17  f.,  21  f.,  64  {.,  160,  360  f. 

Supreme  Being,  so  to  regard  God  makes  him 
hollow,  empty,  poor,  225. 

Survival  of  the  fittest,  the  law  treated  as  an 
efficient  cause,  318,  319 ;  relation  to  final 
causes,  321,  322,  326 ;  is  the  law  of  force, 
that  the  strongest  prevails  over  the  weaker, 
220,  301,  314  f.,  534;  law  of  the  physical 
and  the  spiritual,  declaring  what  must  be, 
not  what  ought  to  be,  534  f.,  535,  540; 
everywhere,  power  not  weakness  that 
achieves,  534  f ;  not  in  conflict  with  the 
moral  law,  535,  540 ;  essential  in  deter¬ 
mining  what  is  duty  to  self  and  others, 
under  the  law  of  love,  535  f.,  538  f. ;  the 
law  regenerated  by  love,  greatness  by  ser¬ 
vice,  536  f. ;  progress  of  society  by  devel¬ 
oping  spiritual  power  above  physical  and 
regulating  it,  385  f.,  537 ;  error  of  Spencer’s 
ethics,  537  f. ;  fundamental  law  revealed 
in  Christ,  the  higher  descending  to  the 
lower  to  help  it  to  lift  itself  higher,  539, 
540. 

Symbolic,  nature  is,  256-266. 

Symbols,  force  and  other  terms  used  as,  180, 
533  f. 

Synthesis,  of  nature,  man  and  God,  220  f., 
288  f. ;  natural  and  the  spiritual,  85  f.,  288f., 
289-292;  of  the  experimental,  historical 
and  rational  in  the  knowledge  of  God,  121- 
149  ;  of  the  antitheses  of  thought  and 
things,  spirit  and  matter,  infinite  and 
finite,  219-221;  of  the  universal  and  par¬ 
ticular  in  human  reason  and  consciousness, 
367  f. 

Syrophoenician  woman,  303. 

T. 

Talleyrand,  133  f. 

Teleology,  definition,  272 ;  internal  ends  real¬ 
izing  ideals,  272-281 ;  in  particulars,  274- 
277;  in  the  cosmos  as  a  whole,  277-281; 
external  ends,  subserving  uses,  272,  281  — 
287;  in  particulars,  281-285;  in  nature  as 
a  whole,  285-287 ;  is  but  a  part  of  the  evi¬ 
dence,  255,  320;  objections,  319-331. 

Tennyson,  88. 

Tertullian,  on  the  sacrifice  of  infants,  28; 
soul  of  man  Christian  by  nature,  393. 

Testimony  to  the  reality  of  God’s  revelation 
in  experience,  41  f.,  Ill,  469. 

Thebaud,  Buddhism,  350. 

Theism,  points  of  agreement  with  non-theis- 
tic  theories,  163,  169,  177-181,  222-224, 
240;  takes  up  aspects  of  truth  attractive 
in  pantheism,  199-201 ;  irreconcilable  with 
false  philosophy,  210  f.  ;  recognizes  the 


unity  of  the  universe  as  dynamic  and  ra¬ 
tional,  168,  184  f.,  187  f.,  202  f. ;  and  the 
absolute  Being,  207-229 ;  rational  ground 
of  the  reality  of  knowledge,  372-374. 

Theologian,  three  requisites,  thinking,  pray¬ 
ing,  trying,  115  f. 

Theology,  systematic,  61-66,  127, 132  f. ;  con¬ 
crete,  4,  99-102,  127-129,  140  f.,  144,  147, 
148  f. ;  its  progress  analogous  to  that  of 
physical  science,  16,  39,  66  f.,  139,  208, 
363 ;  its  processes  analogous,  58,  59-61, 
135  f.,  148,  458,  470 ;  common  objections 
to,  unreasonable,  131,  136  f.,  147 ;  key  to 
current  movement  in,  139-149;  Christo¬ 
centric,  133,  143,  144,  450,  473,  516 ;  no 
theology  in  the  Bible  as  no  science  in  na¬ 
ture,  4,  58,  148,  470. 

Theophanies,  69-71,  467  f. 

Theophilus,  eyes  of  the  soul,  102. 

Thing  in  itself,  80. 

Thomson,  Rev.  Dr.,  353. 

Thought,  necessary  to  the  knowledge  of  God, 
59-73, 132  f.,  394  f. ;  abstracted  from  being, 
not  the  ultimate  ground  of  the  universe, 
373-375;  not  accounted  for  by  molecular 
action  of  the  brain,  343,  508-511. 

Tiele,  Professor,  germs  of  all  religions  in  the 
earliest,  20;  on  Socrates,  43;  universality 
of  religion,  347  ;  theistic  ideas  in  negro 
fetich-worship,  427. 

Tradition,  theory  that  the  knowledge  of  God 
is  communicated  by,  355-357. 

Transcendence,  God’s,  revealed  in  the  uni¬ 
verse,  233-250;  implied  in  the  postulates 
of  physical  science,  235  f. ;  proved  from  the 
essential  conditionedness  of  the  physical 
system,  236  f. ;  from  the  fact  that  the  uni¬ 
verse,  so  far  as  observed,  is  an  effect,  237- 
239;  from  atoms,  masses  and  systems  in 
nature,  239;  from  evolution,  239;  from 
gaps  and  breaks  which  are  inexplicable 
by  persistence  of  force,  19,  205,  239,  269- 
271,  292,  331,  381,  481  f. 

Transcendence  and  immanence,  190-193, 
211  f.  See  Immanence. 

Transition  of  knowledge  from  subjective  to 
objective,  75,  82,  220,  227,  367. 

Tree,  Kearv’s  theory  of  worship,  359  f. 

Trench,  R.  C.,  miracles  and  Antaeus,  477. 

Trendelenburg,  the  absolute  not  a  negative 
notion,  217  ;  proof  of  God’s  personality  in¬ 
direct,  252;  thought  and  being,  375. 

True,  the,  idea  of,  80,  262  f.,  368;  motives 
and  emotions  pertaining  to,  88,  382-384, 
389  f. ;  practical  influence  dependent  on 
the  knowledge  of  God,  406  f. 

Trust  in  the  gods  in  ethnic  religions,  42-. 
44. 

Trustworthiness  of  the  human  mind,  3~2  f- 


INDEX. 


569 


Truth,  assimilated  into  life,  115-118 ;  love  of, 
118  f. 

Tulloch,  man’s  intuition  of  the  spiritual,  93. 

Turgot,  author  of  Comte’s  theory  of  progress 
of  thought,  428. 

Turretine,  Spirit’s  influence  in  regeneration, 
516. 

Tylor,  universality  of  religious  and  moral 
consciousness,  45,  347,  348 ;  primitive  im¬ 
pulse  to  ascertain  causes,  383. 

Tyndall,  materialism  not  favored  in  hours  of 
clearness  and  vigor,  224;  primitive  impulse 
to  ascertain  causes,  383  ;  identifies  will 
with  caprice,  316  ;  language  implying 
final  causes,  321;  no  rudiment  of  a  faculty 
for  knowing  God,  357. 

TJ. 

Uhlhorn,  29. 

Ulrici,  knowledge  and  belief,  99,  114,  202; 
divinity  of  nature-religions,  a  power  behind  | 
nature,  361. 

Ultimate  units  of  thought  and  being,  184. 

Ulysses  and  Grillus,  106. 

Unaided  reason,  80  f.,  91,  93,  119  f.,  122. 

Uniformity  and  continuity  of  nature,  theism 
alone  gives  the  explanation,  254  f.,  316- 
319  ;  these  and  not  merely  the  anomalous 
reveal  God,  19  f.,  424;  prove  a  directing 
mind,  267-272;  these  facts  distinguished 
from  rational  laws,  475,  479  f.,  483  f., 
506. 

Union  with  God  man’s  normal  condition, 
105  f.,  542-546. 

Unity  of  the  proofs  of  the  existence  of  God, 
153  f.,  164  f. ;  all  things  in  systems  and 
of  these  in  one  all-comprehending,  265  f., 
287-292,  505-515;  is  dynamic,  rational 
and  moral,  168,  184  f.,  191  f.,  254  f . ;  ab¬ 
solute  reason  necessary  to,  354  f.,  371 ;  of 
nature,  man  and  God,  85  f.,  219-221, 
287-292  ;  and  continuity  of  law  in  the 
physical  and  the  spiritual  systems,  532- 
546. 

Universal  revealed  in  the  consciousness  of 
the  individual,  367 ;  in  the  particular,  367- 
372. 

Universe,  mechanical  conception  of,  140,  237, 
268  f.,  317,  480  f. ;  type  of,  an  organism, 
286,  481 ;  not  a  finished  mechanism,  but 
plastic,  54  f.,  210,  277-280 ;  its  constitu¬ 
tion  is  the  archetypal  thought  of  God  ex¬ 
pressed  in  it,  79,  115,  192  f.,  219  f.,  227, 
256-260,  289,  292-294,  513 ;  revelation  of 
God,  54  ;  every  man  a  centre  to,  87,  367, 
422  f.,  551  f. 

Unlettered  Christians  have  a  reasonable  faith, 
399-402.  • 


Use,  disuse  and  abuse  of  faculties,  112- 
114. 

Uses,  nature  subserves,  281-287. 

y. 

Yaruna,  prayer  to,  42. 

Veneering  of  paganism,  Christianity,  425. 

Venus  of  Milo  and  Heine,  390  f. 

Verification  by  observation  not  required  in 
scientific  hypothesis,  253 ;  of  the  theistic 
hypothesis,  253,  292-294. 

Vine  and  branch,  parable  of,  105,  542. 

Virchow,  materialistic  dogmatism,  204. 

Vowel-points,  Hebrew,  inspiration  of- 128. 

w. 

Wace,  faith-faculty,  90,  92. 

Waitz,  advanced  religious  ideas  of  negro 
tribes,  427. 

Wallis,  Bible  a  lantern  rather  than  a  light, 
457. 

Waste  in  nature,  296,  331 ;  Goethe  on,  294  f.; 
Prof.  B.  Stewart  on,  485. 

Webster,  D.,  necessity  of  religion,  417  f. ; 
objection  from  the  vastness  of  the  uni¬ 
verse,  550  f. 

Whately,  progressiveness  of  revelation,  456. 

Whitman,  W.,  107. 

Whitney,  Prof.  W.  D.,  definition  of  religion, 
15. 

Will,  free,  is  reason  energizing,  375;  is  su¬ 
pernatural,  17,  50,  83-86,  253-255,  341, 
474-476;  potential  unconditionedness,  214; 
is  its  idea  inherent  in  cause  ?  247-250  ; 
God  revealed  in  the  sphere  of,  89,  375- 
377  ;  pantheism  incompatible  with,  193- 
198  ;  is  the  same  with  miracle-working 
power,  474,  475  f.,  478  f.,  504,  514  f. ;  de¬ 
nial  of  the  possibility  of  miracles  is  the 
denial  of  free  will,  502-504. 

Will  of  God,  regulated  by  reason,  199-201, 
305  f.,  316-319,  479  f.,  497-499 ;  objection 
that  order  and  law  prove  the  absence  of 
will,  316-319;  not  a  separate  volition 
causing  every  motion,  249,  337-339. 

Wilson,  W.  D.,  evolution  without  begin¬ 
ning,  209  f. 

Wisdom,  a  master  workman,  516. 

Witness,  of  the  Spirit,  106,  119  f.,  468  f. ; 
of  the  believer,  41  f.,  Ill,  468  f. 

Wonder,  a  feeling  responsive  to  the  abso¬ 
lute,  379  f. ;  of  ignorance  and  of  knowl¬ 
edge,  424;  a  miracle  not  merely  a,  497. 

Words,  revelation  through,  inadequate,  51, 
71,  362  f.,  446-451;  the  living  Word  and 


570 


INDEX. 


the  written,  447  f. ;  of  the  Master,  448, 
458. 

Wordsworth,  John,  law  and  process,  279. 
Wordsworth,  Wm.,  371,  376,  378. 

Wright,  Chauncey,  cosmical  weather,  170. 

Y. 

Yoga,  123. 

z. 

X. 

Zeller,  on  the  Absolute,  162 
Zeno,  logical  puzzles,  193. 

Xenophanes,  anthropomorphism,  434. 

I 


